Government publishes Children and Families Bill
05 February 2013
In response to the publication of the Children and Families Bill today Sir Paul Ennals, Interim Director of Strategy at Sense said:
'We welcome the publication of the Children and Families Bill which aims to reform the current system of support for children with Special Educational Needs (SEN).
"The Bill will introduce integrated assessment and provision for children with SEN, through new Education, Health and Care Plans. Local authorities will also be obliged to publish a ‘local offer’ in which they describe the education, health and care services they expect to be available.
“To ensure that the bill delivers improvements to the quality and the availability of services, Sense considers that the local offer must be underpinned by national standards which set a minimum level of provision for SEN, that includes specifying specialist support services for deafblind children.
“Sense will also campaign to ensure that assessments of education, health and care recognise the specific needs of deafblind children and their families.”