The Local Offer – summary of consultations and feedback 2014 - 15.

Introduction:

Local Authorities have a duty to publish a Local Offer, setting out in one place information about services available across education, health & social care for children & young people who have special educational needs or disability.The requirements can be found in The SEND Code of Practice: 0 – 25 years (Chapter 4) and the SEND (Local Offer) Regulations Part 4.

In Slough, the Local Offer was co-produced with parents and a multi-agency steering group. Feedback from young people was also included. A Berkshire-wide steering group, which included representatives from the 6 Local Authorities and the Parent Carer Forums, met to develop a common understanding of the requirements and to coordinate the format of information to enhance the sharing of information across borders.

Slough’s Local Offer is on the Slough Services Guide and can be found at:

We are required to publish a report of the consultation undertaken & feedback received on the Local Offer during the year – see SEND Code of Practice sections 4.21 – 4.25. This report has been produced in a ‘you said – we did’ format.

Activity / Feedback / What you said / What we did / will do.
Co-production with parents: Special Voices, Slough’s Parent Carer Forum, consult parents regularly and their feedback has been vital to the initial design & contents of the Local Offer and to its ongoing development.
The Chair of Special Voices was a key member of the local steering group set up to develop the Local Offer. / Local Offer on the Slough Services Guide: Parent Carers preferred to have the Local Offer on the Slough Services Guide rather than the SBC or another new website. This was because they are familiar with the site and the Family Information Service who administer the site.
Website design: Parents were asked for their views about the website. They final design was chosen from several possibilities.
Content & service provision: Parents were consulted about the services they use, those they would like to use & their ‘dreams’ for possible services. / The Local Offer was set up on the Slough Services Guide & the ‘look and feel’ reflected the preference of parents.
Berkshire-wide Local Offer Steering Group – regular meetings to develop a collective approach to our Local Offers. Included Local Offer leads, Family Information Service & Parent representatives. / Berkshire parents wanted Local Offers that were similar in design and format to allow them to make cross-border searches.
Parents preferred a ‘question and answer’ format for schools to produce their local offers to facilitate comparisons.
Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust (BHFT) works across Berkshire. To include their services on all six Local Offers was a challenge. / The Berkshire group came to a common understanding of the Local Offer requirements & developed templates for collating information from schools and other agencies.
The group worked with Open Objects to develop information sharing system cross-borders.
The group worked with BHFT & Open Objects to develop a system that harvested information from the BHFT website for the six Local Offers.
General feedback from users. The Local Offer includes a feedback form which can be used by anyone using the site.
Various comments & feedback have been received from parents & from a range of partners during the year using the form or informally. /
  • Publicising the Local Offer: It would be useful to have a specific leaflet to promote the Local Offer more widely.
  • Some of the information and advice articles are very long and not very user-friendly. They use jargon & could be set out better.
  • It isn’t always easy to find what you are looking for on the Local Offer.
  • It’s annoying when you get a list of national charities or websites before the local, Slough services.
  • There isn’t much information specifically for young people.
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  • We will develop a specific leaflet to promote the Local Offer.
  • Authors of Local Offer articles will be asked to review & re-write if necessary to make the information more user-friendly.
  • We will ask parents to review information & feedback any difficulties they find in understanding it.
  • We will review the ‘key words’ that are used to facilitate searching on the system & add more if necessary.
  • We will work to develop a system to allow local records to appear first on a search list.
  • The youth version of the Local Offer is a priority for next year. We will consult young people about what they would like to include in the Local Offer & then develop it with them.

SEND Information Day – 11th June 2015
Held to re-launch the SEND Advice & Support Service & to promote the Local Offer & other services. It was widely advertised to parents.
People who attended were invited to complete a feedback questionnaire.
Approx. 20 services & 150 people attended. / Feedback on the Local Offer:
  • 57% of parents had not heard of the Local Offer.
  • They had heard about it from a range of agencies: Parent Partnership, FIS, Special Voices, Internet search, Berks Autistic Society, Children’s Centre, word of mouth.
  • 33% had used the Local Offer.
  • 73% found what they were looking for.
  • 63% would like more information about the Local Offer
  • 57% would be prepared to take part in more consultation.
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  • We will promote the Local Offer more widely with parents & carers. We will develop a specific leaflet & ensure that services working with families have access to it.
  • We will contact parents who have expressed an interest in taking part in consultation & arrange to include them in future consultations.

January 2016 - Healthwatch tested the Local Offer website and undertook research with parents around their knowledge about the Local Offer / The Healthwatch report was published in January 2016. The report can be accessed here: HWS-SEND-Report-Jan-2016.pdf / Slough Children’s Services Trust have responded to the report, this can be accessed here: Response to Health Watch
We will continue to develop the Local Offer taking in to account the recommendations of Healthwatch.