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<p>We are committed to supporting children and young people with speech, language
and communication needs (SLCN) and recognise the importance of identifying SLCN early
to enable the right support to be put in place and reduce the impact that they may
have in the longer term.</p><p>The Children and Families Act 2014 places a renewed
focus on the early identification of needs and focuses the system on the impact of
the support provided to the child, rather than on how children access support according
to categories of need.</p><p>The Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework
(EYFS) sets out the key areas of learning which every provider must follow. For communication
and language, the EYFS requires practitioners to give children the opportunity to
experience a rich language environment, to develop their confidence and skills in
expressing themselves and to speak and listen in a range of situations. Communication
and language is a prime area of learning, within which it is expected that all children
attain an expected level in the <em>listening and attention</em>, <em>understanding
</em>and <em>speaking</em> early learning goals.</p><p>The EYFS profile results tells
us that children’s development in these areas are improving year on year. In 2016,
81.6% of children achieved at least the expected level in communication and language
compared to 72.2% in 2013.</p><p>The government recognises that the quality of the
workforce has the biggest impact on children’s outcomes. We have recently published
our workforce strategy which sets out our plans to remove the barriers to attracting,
retaining and developing staff in the early years workforce. One of the planned actions
is to provide training through voluntary and community sector grants on Special Educational
Needs and Disability (SEND), speech and language development and effective business
management.</p><p>We have allocated £223 million to local authorities (LAs), since
2014 to support them to implement the SEND reforms. We published, in December 2016,
seven Invitations to Tender for contracts totalling up to £4.8m to support children
and young people with SEND in 2017-18.</p><p>One of the resulting contracts will specifically
support those with SLCN and comes in addition to £1.7m that has already been invested
in SLCN since the implementation of the SEND reforms in 2014. This funding is improving
support for children and young people who have SLCN both with and without an Education,
Health and Care (EHC) plan. One of the contract requirements will be to improve the
quality of referrals and the effectiveness of commissioning specialist support for
children and young people with SLCN, whether or not they have an EHC plan.</p><p>We
are also delivering, through our strategic partners, a range of support for joint
working between LAs and health bodies, including: self-assessment tools to jointly
monitor progress with meeting responsibilities and briefings to support commissioning.
In addition, from 2017-18, for the first time, NHS provider contracts will include
a requirement that health professionals provide input into EHC plans within six weeks.
We are working with NHS England (NHSE) to make best use of resources to support joint
working, including NHSE-led workshops this spring, and to support the delivery of
the Transforming Care Programme to improve services for children, young people and
adults.</p><p> </p><p>The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on Clinical
Commissioning Groups and LAs to deliver integrated support to improve children and
young peoples’ outcomes. This means that local governance arrangements must be in
place to ensure clear accountability for commissioning services for children and young
people with SEND from birth to the age of 25, whether or not they have an EHC plan.</p><p>In
addition, nurseries, schools and colleges must use their best endeavours to secure
the necessary special education provision needed by those with identified SEND, which
includes commissioning speech and language therapy services. Local authorities can
also use their high needs budget to fund support without the need for an EHC plan
if it is appropriate to do so.</p><p>Government, local areas and the professionals
working with children and young people with SLCN all have their part to play in the
commissioning of services and highlighting where challenges remain. To this end, we
have put in place a new Ofsted and CQC inspection framework for assessing local area
effectiveness with meeting their SEND responsibilities. We are working closely with
the Department of Health and NHSE to respond to findings and support local areas to
improve services and build on their strengths.</p><p>We expect details of services
to meet SLCN, including how they can be accessed, to be included in the local offer,
which every LA is required to publish in consultation with children, parents and young
people. This enables families to hold LAs to account for any provision they feel has
not been available as specified in the Local Offer, and to suggest new services they
consider necessary.</p>
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