On behalf of its membership, the cross-party LGA regularly submits to Government
consultations, briefs parliamentarians and responds to a wide range of parliamentary inquiries. Our recent
responses to government consultations and parliamentary briefings can be found here.
Challenges caused by the systematic underfunding of early years provision are being exacerbated by the rising cost of living and inflationary pressures. This is negatively impacting the financial viability of early years providers, the quality and access of childcare provision, and the availability of good support for children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND).
The LGA has long highlighted that funding for early entitlements is insufficient, which is resulting in a recruitment and retainment crisis in the sector, impacting the quality of childcare provision and the availability of good support for children, particularly those with special education needs and disabilities (SEND).
About the Local Government Association
The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We work with councils to support, promote and improve local government.
The consultation document rightly acknowledges that the SEND is the subject of significant reform via the SEND Green paper and establishment of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), but we are concerned that it does not acknowledge the reasons why system reform is needed.
The previous reforms to the SEND system set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 have failed to achieve the goal of improving provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Placing children and young people at the centre of the SEND system was right, but the reforms set out in the Act were not supported by sufficient powers or funding to allow councils to meet the needs of children with SEND or hold health and education partners to account for their contributions to local SEND systems.
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.
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.