Government needs to ensure its call for councils to recruit dedicated special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) practitioners in family support hubs is fully funded, warns the Local Government Association (LGA).

The hubs will launch from April next year to offer families a range of support including speech and language therapy and specialist parent and baby groups.

This includes Government tasking councils with recruiting a SEND specialist in each hub ‘to provide direct, family-facing support that has been missing for too long’.

But LGA children, young people and families committee chair, Cllr Amanda Hopgood, said: ‘It is essential that any requirement on councils to recruit practitioners is fully funded, and that there is sufficient capacity within the workforce that addresses the skills shortage in the SEND system.’

Despite concerns around funding, she welcomes the commitment from Government on providing families with early SEND support through the hubs.

‘It is right and important that children and families have access to support for SEND in the areas they live, and we support measures that work towards that provision,’ she said.

‘Councils and providers have been consistently reporting an increase in volume and complexity of needs in the early years, which has already required extra support to be put in place in some settings.’

She added that the most common ages for Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans to be put in place are now four and five.

In announcing the pledge to improve support for children with SEND in hubs, education secretary Bridget Philipson said: ‘Giving every child the best start in life means revitalising family support so that parents can rely on it once again.

‘Nowhere is that support more important than for families of children with SEND, where early, expert help can make all the difference not only for parents, but for children’s life chances.

‘And now, local councils will need to work with us to put Best Start Family Hubs in the heart of communities, in service of the families who need them most, and on the frontline of our battle to break the link between background, and success.’