Briefings and responses

We need to ensure that children and young people can also access high-quality mental health support outside of school. Many children and young people face challenges accessing support for their mental health. Patchy implementation of policies has also fuelled a postcode lottery in provision meaning that children and young people do not get a consistent offer of support.

A rise in mental health problems in children and young people in recent years, exacerbated by COVID-19, has placed additional pressures on services and has hindered progress in reaching access targets. Targets set to improve the quality of care within inpatient settings, and to reduce their use in the long term, not been met.

Councils have a crucial role to play in education, from ensuring every child has a school place to turning around struggling schools, which they demonstrated when providing vital support to schools during the pandemic.

While councils have a statutory duty to ensure there is a school place for every child, they are currently not able to direct academies to expand school places or admit individual pupils. We are seeking a commitment from Government redress this discrepancy between councils’ duties and powers as soon as reasonably possible, by providing councils with sufficient backstop powers to direct academies to expand school places and admit individual pupils, within six months of the Act passing.

The LGA supports the focus on ensuring all children get the right support at the right time, particularly in the context of the impact of the pandemic and the widening attainment gap. The amount of funding made available to support education catch-up must be kept under review to ensure every child has the support they need to learn, and to support their broader development and wellbeing.

On 28 March the Government published the ‘Opportunity for all Strong schools with great teachers for your child’ White Paper.

This overview will provide a summary of the key themes that emerged during the morning and afternoon session on 18 September 2020, as well as some practical advice identified by participants.

On 2 March the Government published the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan Right Support, Right Place, Right Time in response to the SEND Green paper that was published in March 2022 and proposed a number of reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system.

On 29 March the Government published the SEND Review: Right support, right place, right time, a consultation on the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision system in England.

Tackling serious violent crime is a key priority for councils. It has become even more vital due to rising levels of this type of crime and the harm it causes to victims and young people drawn and exploited into committing it.