SEND Policies

In March, the government shared a plan to improve services for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and those in Alternative Provision (AP). The Department for Education (DfE) wants these services to work better for families and young people.

To help do this, the DfE is testing new ideas before using them across the country. This work is called the Change Programme. The government has provided £70 million to support this work.

The Change Programme tests new ways of working to see what helps children and young people the most. The testing takes place in groups called Change Programme Partnerships. Each partnership includes three or four local councils and their partners. Local councils were invited to say if they wanted to lead this work in their area.

Leeds was chosen to lead the Yorkshire and Humber partnership. Leeds is working together with Bradford, Calderdale, and Wakefield to test and improve SEND and Alternative Provision services.

A national delivery partner called REACh has been chosen to support this work. REACh includes PA Consulting, the Council for Disabled Children, Olive Academies, and IMPOWER. REACh will work with the Department for Education and the local partnerships over two years. They will help to put the changes into practice, test what works, and improve the plans.

Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, and Wakefield are pilot areas for the Change Programme. This means they are helping to test the changes first. Children and young people are an important part of the programme.

The Yorkshire and Humber SEND Youth Alliance has been asked to gather feedback from young people. They do this through workshops, working with partners, and research led by young people. What young people say will help shape future SEND and Alternative Provision services.

Below is a short film made by the SEND Youth Alliance. The film explains the Change Programme and how young people are involved.

You can get in touch with them by visiting their website here!

Everyone’s Included is Leeds’ plan to make life better for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Leeds shared this plan in January 2023. The plan explains how services will work together to help children and young people with SEND, and those who need extra support because of their situation.

This includes children and young people who are:

• looked after by the local authority
• supported by a social worker
• living in families with low income
• affected by difficult or upsetting experiences

The plan focuses on helping children and young people do well at school, stay healthy, and feel safe and included.

Some parts of the plan started in 2022. Other work was agreed in 2023 and is still starting.

Why does Leeds have this plan?

Children and young people with SEND and their families say there are many good things about living in Leeds. They also say some things could be better.

Leeds created this plan to listen to what children, young people, families, and workers have said. The goal is to make services work better and be easier to use.

The plan also links to a national SEND improvement plan shared in March 2023. This national plan followed a review called Right support, right place, right time.

Both plans agree that:

• support should start early
• help should be high quality
• services should work well together
• finding support should be simpler for families

How was the plan made?

The plan was made with children, young people, families, and services. This is called co‑production. It means people who are affected had a real say.

The name Everyone’s Included came from the SEND Youth Forum. Young people chose it to show that everyone belongs in Leeds.

Work to create the plan included:

• surveys and group discussions with families
• online workshops with over 500 people
• talks with schools, health services, and early help teams
• activities with the SEND Youth Forum
• support from the Voice and Influence team for parents and carers

Reports were written to share what people said, including:

• Parent, carer and partners report  
• Children and young people’s report

What does the plan say?

The plan supports other Leeds plans about children’s learning, health, and wellbeing. It explains three main aims for Leeds.

Children and young people should:

• feel included in school, play, and community life
• get the help they need to reach their full potential
• be supported by services that work well together
• have support that fits their own needs and goals

The plan sets six main priorities, including:

• spotting needs early and planning good support
• having skilled and confident staff
• making sure plans for children are clear and meaningful
• giving extra focus to children who may face more difficulties
• offering a range of good learning places and services
• helping services and families work together

The plan also shares important values, such as:

• working with families as partners
• listening to children and young people
• starting support early and preparing for adulthood
• making services as personal as possible
• using information to improve services

Who checks the plan is working?

The Leeds SEND Partnership Board includes education, health, and social care services, as well as children, young people, and families.

The Board checks that the plan is being followed. It looks at shared goals to see if things are improving for children and young people in Leeds.

More information

A longer and more detailed guide to the Everyone’s Included plan is available here.

If anyone has questions or would like to get involved, they can email LLO@leeds.gov.uk 

Our Future in Minds Strategy is a plan for Leeds that explains how people are working together to improve mental and emotional health for children and young people.

click here for more information about the strategy

The 3A's Plan (attendance, attainment and achievement) will help us become the best city for children and young people.

click here for more information about the plan

The Care Act 2014 sets out the vision for adults in England who need care and support.
The aims of the act are to:

Make care and support clearer and fairer;

• Promote people’s wellbeing; to enable people to prevent and delay the need for care and support; and
• Put people in control of their lives so they can pursue opportunities to realise
  their potential.

More information can be found at: http://www.leeds.gov.uk/docs/Care%20Act.pdf

The Children and Families Act brings together a number of changes to legislation around services for vulnerable children and families. The changes cover the family justice system, virtual schools for looked after children, adoption, childcare, shared parental leave and flexible working, and Special Educational Needs and disability (SEND) services.

The provisions in the Act which relate to SEND came into force in September 2014.

More information can be found at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/6/contents/enacted 

The SEND and alternative provision improvement plan sets out the Governments plans to change the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision system in England.

Click here to view the plan

A Deprivation of Liberty is currently defined as ‘under continuous supervision and not free to leave’. This for many is related to those living in provisions were there are for example locked doors, staff supervising residents or where if they left the residence they would be brought back.

Those who ‘lack capacity’ to consent to these sorts of restrictions currently require a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS). Currently DOLS are agreed by the Supervisory Body for adults who are residing in hospital or a care home when aged 18+ who do not have the capacity to consent to their treatment. This requires a Mental Capacity Assessment to take place to test the individual’s ability to understand, retain, weigh up the information and communicate the decision. If they are assessed as not having the capacity to consent, consideration is given to whether decisions are in their ‘Best Interest’. For anyone under 18, decisions need to be made by a judge under the Court of Protection (COP) as to whether these deprivations are necessary and proportionate. It will also decide if these deprivations are in the Best Interest of the child.

Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards are changing. The government are aiming for April 2024 for full implementation to new Liberty Protection Safeguard’s (LPS):

• LPS is about safeguarding the rights of people who are under high levels of care and supervision but lack the mental capacity to consent to those arrangements for their care.
• LPS will apply to people in care homes, hospitals, supported accommodation, Shared Lives accommodation and their own homes.
• LPS will apply to anyone aged 16 and above.
• The Key Principles of the Mental Capacity Act will still apply.
• Local Authorities and NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) can authorise LPS as the Responsible Body.
• LPS authorisations can be portable and made across settings (for example in a care home and short break centre).

At this stage we are asking professionals to be aware of these changes and how they may impact on the young people they work with.

Updated October 2022

Our Joint Commissioning Strategy aims to set out how we (the Integrated Care Board in Leeds-Place and Leeds City Council) will work together to jointly commission our offers to children and young people (CYP), with a particular focus on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This Strategy aims to deliver on our collective vision for Leeds whilst responding to the voice of children, young people, parents, families, carers and professionals.

Click here to download the strategy. 

Click here to download the you said we did. 

What are joint area SEND inspections?

In January 2023, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) adopted a new framework for jointly inspecting local area arrangements to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). These inspections assess how effectively education, health, and social care services in the area work together to improve experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND aged 0 to 25 years, and their families.

The new inspection framework builds on the framework first introduced in 2016. This was focused on how effectively local areas deliver new statutory duties introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Code of Practice 2015. Leeds was inspected under this framework in 2016; click here to see the letter from inspectors.

click here to view the information for parents and carers Ofsted easy read document

What does the inspection framework cover?

The new inspection framework continues to assess how effectively education, health, and social care services in the area deliver statutory duties. However it also responds to the national SEND review 2022: Right support, right place, right time with some new features, as follows:

• A greater focus on the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND and their families. Inspectors will meet with children and young people with SEND and their families. They will also send a survey to every child or young person with SEND in the local area, and their family, asking about their experiences.
• Greater focus on partnership working, joint arrangements, and clear accountabilities across the local education, health and care partnership. Lead inspectors for education, for health, and for social care, will lead multi-disciplinary inspection teams.
• A new focus on alternative provision (which provides education for children who cannot attend a mainstream school) and how it is commissioned and overseen locally.

A new cycle of inspections, based on 3 new outcomes to be made by inspectors:

• The local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership is taking action where improvements are needed.
• The local area partnership’s arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership must work jointly to make improvements.

There are widespread and/ or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which the local area partnership must address urgently.

Each local area will be inspected at least once during a 5 year period, with more frequent re-inspection for areas where arrangements do not typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes.

Local areas are also subject to themed inspections, and to an annual engagement meeting.

How are the inspections carried out?

Inspections take place over three weeks. In weeks one and two, the local area must provide a range of local data and information. This includes person-level data (lists of all children and young people with SEND who live in the local authority area, including those educated out of area) and information about how local education, health and care services commission and deliver services for children and young people with SEND and their families. Inspectors will also select a small sample of children and young people for ‘tracking’: this means they do a detailed review of the education, health, and social care support that the child or young person has accessed. (Inspectors will only do this this with the consent of the child or young person and their parents or carers). Inspectors will aim to talk to all the children and young people they ‘track’, and to their parents or carers, to learn about their experiences of services. They will also ask for surveys to be shared with all local children and young people with SEND and their parents or carers.

In week three, inspectors are on-site for fieldwork, including meetings with leaders and practitioners and visits to a sample of local education, health, and/or care settings. During visits to settings, inspectors will evaluate children and young people’s experiences and outcomes by reviewing documents and records, and talking to practitioners. The settings visited are not subject to evaluation under this inspection, as they are subject to their own inspection arrangements, but their records and practice will be scrutinised. The joint SEND inspection is focused on how effectively local education, health, and care partners work together to improve experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND, with shared accountability.

How will inspectors evaluate local areas?

The inspection framework and handbook set out in detail the criteria inspectors use to evaluate the area. In brief: inspectors evaluate the effectiveness of the area’s partnership SEND arrangements in improving experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND, including the extent to which:

• Children and young people’s needs are identified accurately and assessed
• Children, young people and families participate in decisions about plans and support
• Children and young people receive the right help at the right time
• Children and young people are well prepared for their next steps, and achieve strong outcomes; and
• Children and young people are valued, visible and included in their communities.

Inspectors also evaluate how effectively local area partners work together to plan, evaluate and develop the SEND system, including the extent to which:

• Leaders are ambitious for children and young people with SEND
• Leaders actively engage and work with children, young people and families
• Leaders have an accurate, shared understanding of the needs of children and young people in their local area
• Leaders commission services and provision to meet the needs and aspirations of children and young people, including commissioning of alternative provision
• Leaders evaluate services and make improvements; and
• Leaders create an environment in which effective practice and multi-agency working can flourish.

Further information

The full inspection framework and handbook is available online. An ‘easy read’ document setting out changes to the Framework is also available here.

If you have any questions about how the inspection will work in Leeds, please contact us via SENDBestPractice@Leeds.gov.uk