Information, Advice and Support Service (IASS) Soft Market testing

The Children and Families Act (2014) requires local authorities to provide children and young people with Special Educational Needs (SEN) or disabilities, and their parents and carers with information and advice about matters relating to their SEN or disabilities. The SEN Code of Practice (2015) states that Information, Advice and Support (IASS) should be provided through a dedicated and easily identifiable service and should be impartial, confidential, accessible, and should have the capacity to handle face-to-face, telephone and electronic enquiries. Following advice, from the Department for Education and the national Information Advice and Support (IAS) Network, for the need to establish a service fully independent of the Local Authority, consideration is being given to the optimum way to provide this service. One option that is being considered is to include the Disagreement Resolution and Mediation services within the IASS service. We are requesting providers complete a short questionnaire that should be completed and returned to us by 12 noon on Thursday 13th April 2017. The information and insight we obtain from this will then support the development of a tendering exercise later in the year.