Have Your Say

If you feel we have got it wrong or have given you a poor service, or would like to compliment the service you have received, you can contact our designated SEND Compliance Officer. This can often be the quickest way of sorting things out. They will not treat your comments as a formal complaint unless you ask them to, but they will use your comments and take appropriate action, or give you information.

Our SEND Compliance Officer can be contacted 

by email: sendcustomerfeedback@stoke.gov.uk

or by phone: 01782 233 528

If you prefer, you can make a formal complaint, comment or compliment.

Feedback is an important part of the Local Offer. We welcome feedback from anyone who uses the website and the services you find on it. 

We would love to know what you think about the accessibility of information of the SEND Local Offer, the quality of the existing provision and any gaps within this provision, and also the development and review process of the SEND Local Offer.

The Stoke-on-Trent Local Offer will continue to be improved over time and we will use your comments and suggestions to help us do this. 

We welcome any comments or feedback about this site regarding:

• The quality of provision
• Any gaps that you feel there are in Stoke-on-Trent's provision
• How accessible you feel the information in the SEND Local Offer is
• Any information you would like to see included
• How the Local Offer is being developed or reviewed.

How to take part

Click here to take part in our survey.

We are also looking for peer-to-peer content for the Stoke-on-Trent Local Offer. We think that messages are more powerful if they are from parent to parent or school to school. And we think that content for the Local Offer should be produced locally.

We want you to get in touch if you are

• a child or a young person who wants to share what has worked for you;
• a parent with advice for other parents;
• a school that would like to share good practice with other schools;
• a school that would like to add a virtual tour to the Local Offer;
• an educational professional who can explain how to access services;
• a support group who wants to reach out to new members.

We want constructive content that will help and support children and young people with special educational needs and/ or disabilities and their families. 

We are waiting to hear from you at localoffer@stoke.gov.uk. Please send us a couple of sentences saying what you would like to contribute and we will get back to you.

You said about Aiming High:

"Families can miss out on activities due to not booking in time."

Introduction of an online booking system giving parents/carers a digital option of booking activities. Activities are not booked on a first come first serve basis with providers allocating spaces fairly.

"The Parent Carer Forum should be shaping the service. Feedback is gathered but only from families who access the service."

Improved engagement with parents/carers and links with PEGIS to gather feedback and inform service developments.

"Activities can be limited and not varied."

We have partnered with new providers to deliver new activities.We have reduced management costs to spend more of the budget on delivery of activities.

We have increased the core activity offer to two sessions a month. Previously the core offer was 1 session per month with an extra 1 session during school holidays. To make this consistent every month, we have increased this to 2 sessions per month. An annual increase from 19 sessions to 24 sessions.

You said: "It’s too difficult to make SEND transport requests and we can’t easily contact the SEND transport team." 

Recently launched a new application portal for parents and carers. This is much more comprehensive and supports processing applications more effectively. This is something parents and carers have asked for in the past and we have listened to advice given. We now have a direct telephone number for the SEND transport requests team (01782 233737) so the team is more accessible to speak to.

You said: “There’s no updated information”

We did: At the beginning of the year we carried out a major exercise which involved updating information, pages, and links on the Local Offer website; it was a big refresh.

We now have a news section on our homepage to share important updates, and we have a termly newsletter.

You said: “The Local Authority does not invest in the Local Offer”

We did: The Stoke-on-Trent Council decided to bring the Local Offer website ‘in-house’ to sit on a Council platform instead of an external one. Having the Local Offer on an internal platform means we can have more control when developing the website in the future, updates can be done timelier, and there will be overall more flexibility. The Council also appointed a Local Offer Development and Engagement Lead.

You said: “Nobody tells you about the Local Offer”

We did: During the first half of 2023 we sent comms to all our stakeholders (parents, carers, young people, schools, partners, service providers and practitioners) about the Local Offer. We also had articles in the foster carers’ newsletter, had a stand at the Together We Thrive event and have put together a communications plan to continue to raise awareness of the Local Offer. We are regularly visiting other community events, schools and colleges.

You said: “Better information needs to be on”

We did: During the Local Offer refresh we uploaded a lot of new information, we are working closely with parents and carers to find out the information they really want to find on the website. We also want to hear from more young people.

You said: “The website is not multilingual / also does not provide an audio of contents”

We did: We now have a translation tool on the site, we are also looking at having audio for a lot of the pages so that users can have the option of reading text or listening/watching a video.

You said: “Not very interesting” said by a young person

We did: We have had feedback for a ‘young people’s area’ within the Local Offer which is tailored specifically for young people in design and content; we are looking into this and plan to launch the young peoples' area later in 2024.

We have visited schools, colleges and groups and asked young people about the content they would like to see. We have created a young people’s area with information about

You said: Parents wanted to know more about local activities available in the area for children with additional needs – especially during the six weeks holidays, and the cost.

We did: We now have a calendar listing local activities, groups and events on our homepage.

We coproduced a round-up of activities and events for the Easter holidays 2024 with the Parent Carer Forum. It was very positively received and we are continuing to do this for every school holiday.

You said: "There should be actual pictures of Stoke children and young people on the website"

We did: We are looking into this with PEGiS who are part of the Parent Carer Forum and Stoke-on-Trent IT.

You said: "It is hard to find the information we want about special schools."

We did: All special schools and colleges now have the ages of children and young people they educate clearly in the title of their listing. We are working with schools and colleges to tag their listings according to the needs they cater for so website users can search this way.

You said: "There should be a newsletter."

We did: We sent out our first professionals' newsletter in December 2023 and the first families' newsletter January 2024. Both are available for everyone to access from our website.

You said: "It's hard to find the information you want on the website"

We did: We have tagged directory records much more accurately to help when you are searching for them. Our colleagues in IT are working hard behind the scenes to improve the user experience of someone visiting the website, which is making it much easier to navigate around.

You said: "It's confusing that you have to click on the words on the homepage, not the pictures"

We did: We have added links so you can click on the pictures of the main menu as well as the words.

You said: “It’s confusing having to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the search bar.”

We did: We have moved the search bar to the top of the homepage.

You said: “There’s too much writing in big blocks, it makes it hard to find the information you’re after.”

We did: Our web team have worked hard to improve the layout and divide the text into more manageable chunks.