Somewhere on your council’s website, usually a page nobody’s ever pointed you to, there’s a list of everything they’re supposed to provide for a disabled child. Free holiday clubs. A parent support group two streets over. A grant that covers the ramp you’ve been quoted hundreds of pounds for privately. Short breaks, transport help, funding, all of it sitting on one page that most parents never find, because nobody at the school gate, the GP surgery, or the hospital ever mentions it.
That page is called the Local Offer, and every local authority (LA) in England has a legal duty to publish one. It’s not a marketing brochure the council put together when they had a spare afternoon. Under section 30 of the Children and Families Act 2014, your council must set out the SEND provision it expects to be available for children and young people who have special educational needs or a disability, and the SEND Regulations 2014 spell out exactly what has to be on it.
You don’t need a diagnosis, an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), or anyone’s sign-off to look at it. And a good chunk of what’s listed doesn’t need one either.
How to find your council’s Local Offer
Finding it is usually the easy part, once you know it exists. Search “[your council’s name] Local Offer” and it’s normally the first result. Councils brand theirs differently, some call it a “SEND Local Offer”, others fold it into a wider family information service, so if the obvious search draws a blank, try adding “SEND” or “SEN” instead.
Use the Local Offer for where you live, not where your child goes to school, if the two are different. It’s an easy detail to miss, and it matters: your rights sit with your home LA, not your school’s.
If a search gets you nowhere, the Special Needs Jungle directory of all 151 Local Offer websites links straight to every council in England.
What your council’s Local Offer must include by law
This is the part worth actually knowing, because it turns a vague “have a look at the website” into something you can hold your council to. Section 30(2) of the Act groups the required provision under five headings: education, health and care provision; other educational provision; other training provision; travel arrangements to school, college and early years settings; and support for preparing for adulthood and independent living. Regulation 53 and Schedule 2 of the SEND Regulations 2014 break that down further, into 23 separate requirements covering everything from how needs get identified to how mediation works.
In plain terms, here’s what should be on your council’s page:
- Education, health and care provision - what’s available in mainstream schools, special schools, and post-16 settings, plus health and social care support beyond what’s ordinarily available to every child
- Transport arrangements - help getting to and from school, college, or other provision, including support with the cost
- Preparing for adulthood - support with independent living, apprenticeships, and further education from 16 onwards
- How to request an EHC needs assessment, and how personal budgets work
- Short breaks and other social care support - what’s on offer and how to access it
- How to complain, and how mediation and disagreement resolution work
- How your comments get answered - the council must publish what parents and young people say, and its response, at least once a year
If your council’s page is missing several of these, that’s not a formatting problem. It’s a gap in a legal duty, and it’s worth naming it as exactly that when you raise it.
Using it without an EHCP
This is the part that surprises people most. A large amount of what’s on the Local Offer needs no assessment, no diagnosis, and no plan. You just turn up, or fill in a short form, and you’re in.
Short breaks are the clearest example. Some are “universal”, meaning any family raising a disabled child can self-refer straight from the Local Offer listing, no social worker involved. Holiday play schemes, youth clubs, family swim sessions, and sitting services often work this way. Early years SEND funding, parent support groups, and equipment loan schemes frequently sit in the same sign-up-and-go category.
The same page should also tell you where your local Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) is. SENDIASS is free for any family whose child has SEND, plan or no plan, and it’s usually the quickest way to work out what actually applies to your situation before you request anything formal.
When your Local Offer is out of date or thin
It’s frustrating to find a page that reads like it hasn’t been touched in years, or one so vague it tells you almost nothing. You’re not imagining the gap. Research from Special Needs Jungle, assessing all 151 Local Offer websites in England against the legally required content, found compliance scores ranging from 29% to 98%, and only 44% of councils had published the user comments they’re required to.
The same research found only 46% of Local Offers set out clear EHCP eligibility criteria. If yours doesn’t, ask your council’s SEND team for it in writing.
You have a specific legal right to do something about this. Under section 30(6) of the Act, the council must publish comments from parents, children, and young people about the Local Offer, along with its response. Regulation 56 of the SEND Regulations 2014 sets the minimum frequency: at least once a year. Submitting a comment isn’t a suggestion box exercise. It’s you exercising a statutory right, and the council is required to answer.
If commenting gets you nowhere, escalate it. Our guide to the SEND complaints ladder walks through each stage, but the short version is a formal complaint to the council first, then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman if that doesn’t resolve it. Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission also jointly inspect local area SEND provision, and a thin Local Offer is exactly the kind of thing that feeds into those inspections.
Common misconceptions
“I need an EHCP before any of this applies to me.” No. Section 30 covers every child and young person with SEND, whether or not they have a plan, and plenty of what’s listed needs no assessment at all.
“If it’s not on the Local Offer, it doesn’t exist.” Not necessarily. Local Offers miss things constantly. If you can’t find something you’re fairly sure should be there, ask the council’s SEND team directly. Missing information is grounds for a comment, not proof there’s nothing available.
“It’s just a directory, so there’s nothing to challenge.” Not true. The Local Offer is a legal duty with a specific list of required content, so a genuinely inadequate one is something you can formally challenge, not just grumble about.
What to do next
Search for yours this week, not “when things calm down.” Run it against the checklist above and note anything missing. If something’s absent or clearly wrong, submit a comment in writing and keep a copy with the date.
Then find out whether your area has a Parent Carer Forum. They deal with exactly this kind of gap collectively, and a pattern several families raise carries more weight than one voice on its own.
Getting help
Parent Carer Forums (PCFs) are independent groups of parents and carers who work with councils to improve local SEND services, and LAs are required to consult them when developing and reviewing the Local Offer. Find yours through the National Network of Parent Carer Forums.
SENDIASS can point you toward what’s genuinely available in your area and help you word a comment if your Local Offer needs challenging. It’s free, confidential, and every council has one.
Contact runs a free helpline (0808 808 3555) for any family raising a disabled child aged 0 to 25, and can help you make sense of what a thin Local Offer might be hiding.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) investigates when a council’s formal complaints process hasn’t sorted things out, including failures around the Local Offer itself.