Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide commissioners of services for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs with guidance on seeking the views of service users and their families and the co-production of service design.

We recognise the importance of ensuring that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their parents are engaged in developing SEND policy and processes, including commissioning arrangements, in local areas.

As part of a £3.8 million contract with the Council for Disabled Children and KIDS that will be delivered between 2018 and 2020, we invested £1.15 million between April 2016 and March 2018 to support young people with SEND to contribute to the ongoing development of SEND policy and implementation. We are also providing £4.6 million to Parent Carer Forums between 2018 and 2020. This will bring parents together with local decision makers and help provide them with a voice in the system.

The views of service users and the effectiveness of co-production are key elements of the Ofsted and Care Quality Commission inspections of SEND services. These inspections, which began in 2016, will take place in all local authority areas in England over a period of five years. The inspections identify strengths and areas for development and support commissioners to work with partners, including families, to further improve services.

We have worked with partners, including NHS England, to establish a national network for Designated Medical Officers and Designated Clinical Officers. We have also funded a local authority-led regional network and developed resources to support joint self-assessment and peer review.

Improving local SEND commissioning arrangements has been identified as a key area in recent reviews. In particular, this was identified in the ‘Good intentions, good enough?’ report by Christine Lenehan, published in November 2017, and the ‘Bercow: 10 Years On’ report, published by I CAN and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists in March this year. Both reports are attached. We are establishing a leadership board of key stakeholders, and a key focus for this board will be to work with local authorities and NHS clinical commissioning groups to support them to improve local planning and commissioning.