Local Offer Annual Report 2025 - 2026

Wakefield's SEND Local Offer website provides information, support and resources for children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) and their families. It outlines the SEND provision available across the district for those aged 0 to 25 years, and in some circumstances, includes the provision in other local authority areas.

This annual report details the updates that have been made to Wakefield's SEND Local Offer website during the period April 2025 to March 2026, provides context to the legislation underpinning it, outlines the highlights from the next 12 months, and summarises the next steps for future improvement.

All local authorities much publish SEND Local Offer information on services and support available for children and young people in their area who have special educational needs or disabilites. Local authorities, their partner bodies, and agencies must co-operate with each other in the development and review of the Local Offer. As per the SEND code of practice (4.2), the Local Offer has two key purposes:

To provide clear, comprehensive, accessible, and up-to-date information about the available provision and how to access it
To make provision more responsive yo local needs and aspirations by directly involving children, young people, parents, carers and service rpoviders in its development and review

For the past four years Family Action has been commissioned by Wakefield Council to undertqake the management of day-to-day activitiy of the website, ensuring that the offer is current and accurate and meets relevant standards. Colleagues from Family Action have led on the Local Offer operational and strategic meetings, including at regional level. Family Action has produced resources, led on local offer co-production events and produced the newsletter and annual report.

The commission to manage the Local Offer was part of a joint contract to supply a SENDIAS service for Wakefield. This became due for renewal, and the decision was made to disaggregate the two, with the provision of a SENDIAS service offered to retender and the day-to-day management and strategic development of the Local Offer being brought 'in-house' to Wakefield Council. This now sits with the SEND Development Team.

People, Places, Lives

People, Places, Lives (PPL) provise the platform on which the local offer website is hosted. In January 2026 the Umbraco operating system was successfully upgraded from Umbraco 7 to Umbraco 13. This supports the Information and Guidance section of the website.

James Lees, Project Manager with PPL, has successfully delivered training on both operating systems for the website, Umbraco and Shop 4 Support (S4S), to Wakefield Council. This was in preparation for the move or day-to-day management and strategic development of the website from Family Action to Wakefield Council.

Mental Health and Wellbeing Information

Family Action produced an information section on mental health and wellbeing, aimed specifically at children and young people themselves. This contained a lot of information about where children and young people, and their families, could find help amd support from organisations both within the district and nationally. We were acutely aware that some young people looking at this might be at a point of needing immediate care and were keen to emphasise the need to use 999 in these cases. The content was shared with 'Shout Out for Change' who warmly welcomed the inclusion of this information.

Preparing for Adulthood improvements

In February 2026 we redesigned the Preparing for Adulthood (PfA) section of the website. AS a key part of PfA is developing the independence of our young people with SEND, we worked with 'Shout Out for Change' members to make the language more accessible to young people. There is still work to do to develop this part of the site, particularly around health and social care, but our work so far has been recognised by other local authorities in the Yorkshire and Humber region. Parents and carers have said that this style of language should be used for all entries on the website.

Use of Microsfot Sway for 'News and Views'

'News and Views' the Local Offer newsletter has been presented in a slightly different way using MS Sway. This provides users with a choice as to how they wish to view the document, increasing accessibility. A companion document about how to use MS Sway was created to support users who are new to this app.

School Transport

A peer review of the local offer website, conducted by members from the regional Yorkshire and Humber group, identified that it was difficult to find information about Home to School transport and individual travel, training, other than through the Preparing for Adulthood section.

This was rectified by the inclusion of a School Transport button on the front page which links directly to the appropriate Wakefield Council site.

'Ownership' mapping exercise

A mapping exercise is underway to identify owenership of each aspect of the information and guidance section of the Local Offer. An initial audit revealed that some information had not been reviewed since 2022, when the host platform moved across to the present PPL site.

As was explained in last year's annua report, users of the Wakefield SEND Local Offer website now need to 'opt-in' to the use of cookies. Cookies are small pieces of data from each website that remember information about users. To get fully accurate information we need users to not only accept cookies but to also turn on analytics to track data.

Data for 2025/26 is reported below. (Source: Google Analytics GA4)

Comparative data can be viewed in Appendix 1.

User Information
Total number of users	51, 807
Total number of new users	45, 109
Number of sessions*	64, 891
Number of views	97, 674

* A session is a view and interaction with the site.

Page Views
Range	Views
Yearly Total	97, 674
Average Monthly Total	8140
Month with highest viewership - May 2024	15, 596
Month with lowest viewership – June 2024	625

What did users view?

The Top 10 pages viewed were:

Home page
Search results
Services directory
Information Network
Education directory
Requesting an EHCP
Things to do directory
Emotionally Based School Avoidance
WESAIL
Early Intervention and Prevention Service

Search functionality

A new search will be developed. This will be places prominently on the home page and allow users to search both the information and guidance aspects and the directories. This will be live from May.

Co-production

A series of open listening events have been put in place across the summer and autumn terms to reach out to parents and carers. Through these we are hoping to gain insights into how the Local Offer, and the website in particular, needs to be developed and grow. Similar events are proposed for children and young people and for professionals. Each will have their own dedicated space on the Local Offer website, under the banner 'Wakefield Working Together', which gives them a space to promote wider co-production and gives them a greater sense of ownership.

Accurate and up-to-date information

One frustration that has been cited with the Local Offer website is that of broken links and directory entries that either no longer exist or have changed their contact details. A process has been established to contact all entries on an annual basis, requiring a 'nil' response if nothing has changed, or acting as a prompt for people where an update is required. Where no response is received them the information will be removed. While we know this still won't be perfect, we do hpe that it will reduce some of the frustrations reported currently.

Ownership and responsibility

SEND is everybody's responsibility and anyone working with children and young people with SEND or their families is part of the Wakefield SEND Local Offer. Due to the Local Offer website being administered by an external party, wider teams have often lost sight of the part that they play in the Local Offer.

Once the ownership of pages on the Local Offer website has been mapped to teams or groups, we will support training for individuals who will then be able to update their own pages. Updates should be carried out on an at least annual basis.

Having a robust information source for our children and young people with SEND and their families has a benefit in improving our relationship with them. It develops a sense of trust in what we do, creates better understanding, and reduces complaints.

The Carousel

In the centre of the home page there is a carousel of key pages. This has not been changed for some time and features out of date information. This will become a more dynamic news section, with information placed on here for a limited time only (maximum of six weeks). This will enable users to see new information that has been added to the site 'at a glance'.

SEND Directory

The current SEND Directory is out of date and is presented in a document form that cannot be readily changed. It is proposed that the SEND Directory be revamped ahead of the 2026/27 academic year, with the presentation of the information being easire to find and easier to change rapidly should things like contact information, opening times and website links alter.

Direct work with People, Places, Lives

Wakefield Council has commissioned PPL to undertake a programme of development which will enable us to achieve our ambitious vision for the Local Offer website, in line with the upcoming SEND reforems. This will be fully co-produced and is an opportunity for users to have their say in what they want and need from this service.

Local Offer Live

A Local Offer Live event has been scheduled for 3 March 2027. This will bring together service providers and users with a chance to gain greater understanding of what our Local Offer is in the Wakefield District.

The table below shows four sets of data:

Set 1: Google Analytics GA4 April 2025 - March 2026
Set 2: Google Analytics GA4 April 2024 - March 2025*
Set 3: Data reported in the Local Offer Annual Report 2024 - 2025**
Set 4: Google Analytics GA4 April 2023 - March 2024

*It is understood that there was an issue in the data received across November, December and January 24/25. This makes comparative data analysis difficult. The data obtained from 2023/24 provides a more reliable benchmark for comparison.

** Source not known.

	2025/26	2024/25	2024/25	2023/24
Source	GA4	GA4	Local Offer Annual Report	GA4
Users	51, 807	17,024	-	38,117
New Users	45, 109	12,641	17,163	31,537
Sessions	64, 891	18,925	25,796	45,238
Page views	97, 674	35,731	38,088	51,079

Although direct analysis is difficult, given the discrepancies and changes thta occured in 2024/25, there is a general upward trend in the use of the Local Offer website. As well as an increase in the number of user, they are viewing more pages when they visit, the average having risen from 1.35 to 1.91 pages.

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Last updated: 18/08/2026