The law behind the placement profile
What already obliges a setting, what does not, and where this goes beyond the law. Every line links to the source.
Four kinds of thing are below, and they are not the same. Duty means the law requires it. Statutory guidance means the law requires you to have regard to it. Policy means government intends it but it is not law yet. Principle means a rights framework or a review. Say which one you mean and nobody can accuse the concept of overclaiming.
Back to my placement profileWhat already exists
None of this needs inventing. It is on the statute book, in statutory guidance, or in government guidance today. The profile does not create a duty; it makes the existing duty possible to discharge.
Education — what a setting must already do
What it says: Schools, colleges and training providers must make reasonable adjustments: change a provision, criterion or practice, remove or alter a physical feature, or provide an auxiliary aid.
What it means here: The duty is anticipatory. A setting has to think ahead about barriers, not wait for a young person to complain after the harm. A pre-placement profile is that thinking-ahead, written by the person the barriers affect.
What it says: Public bodies, including local authorities, maintained schools and colleges, must have due regard to eliminating discrimination and advancing equality of opportunity.
What it means here: A local authority or college that never asked what a young person needed before placing them cannot show due regard. The profile is the evidence that the question was asked.
What it says: From the Year 9 annual review onward, every review of an EHC plan must include a focus on preparing for adulthood: employment, independent living, community and health.
What it means here: The law already asks for this conversation from age 13 to 14. What it does not provide is a record the young person owns, that survives the meeting it was said in.
What it says: Schools must secure independent careers guidance for years 8 to 13, and give providers of technical education and apprenticeships at least six opportunities to meet all pupils across those years.
What it means here: Careers work is compulsory but generic. A profile turns a generic encounter into a specific, informed one, because the young person arrives knowing what they are choosing between.
What it says: All young people should have at least one personal guidance meeting with a careers adviser by 16, and a further one-to-one meeting by 18.
What it means here: Two conversations in eight years. The profile is what makes those two conversations carry — and what fills the gap between them.
What it says: Supported internships are a work-based study programme for 16 to 24 year olds who have an EHC plan.
What it means here: The best-fitting route into work for many young people is gated behind an EHC plan. A young person without one — or mid-assessment — has no equivalent. The profile does not need a plan to exist.
Employment — what an employer must already do
What it says: An employer must not discriminate against a job applicant in the arrangements made for deciding whom to offer work to.
What it means here: The placement stage is covered, not just the job. How a young person is selected, shown round and started is part of the arrangements.
What it says: Treating someone unfavourably because of something connected with their disability is unlawful unless it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
What it means here: Being penalised for needing written instructions, a quiet start or a later start is a legal risk for a placement, not a personality clash. Naming the need in advance protects both sides.
What it says: It is generally unlawful for an employer to ask about a job applicant's disability or health before offering work.
What it means here: This is the design line the profile must not cross. The profile is not an employer's questionnaire and is never used to screen anyone out. It is written by the young person, kept by them, and given only when they choose — which is why it stays lawful and stays theirs.
What it says: A grant for practical support — equipment, support workers, travel, communication support at interview — for people aged 16 or over. It explicitly does not pay for what an employer must provide as a reasonable adjustment.
What it means here: Access to Work starts at 16 and is a grant, not a right to a placement. Below 16 the honest description is not 'Access to Work' — it is the record that makes the 16+ application possible and gives a setting something to act on now.
What it says: A voluntary document a person can fill in to identify the adjustments they need when moving into or staying in work, including work experience, an apprenticeship or a supported internship.
What it means here: The government has already accepted the idea of a portable adjustments record. The difference here is age and authorship: this one starts at 14, is written by the young person, and exists before the first placement rather than at the point of a job offer.
What it says: Strengthens the day-one right to request flexible working, including a clearer process and a requirement that a refusal be reasonable.
What it means here: A young person whose head does not come online at 8am is not asking for a favour any more; flexible working is a request the law now takes seriously. The profile says what pattern works before the rota is written.
What it says: Not law: a government-commissioned review recommending an adjustments passport, better employer understanding, and interview reform. It found only around 35% of autistic employees are fully open about being autistic at work.
What it means here: The disclosure problem is official. A profile that describes what works without requiring a diagnosis is a direct answer to a finding the government has already published.
Safeguarding — what a placement already owes
What it says: Where a school places a pupil with an alternative provision provider, the school remains responsible for that pupil's safeguarding and must be satisfied the placement meets their needs.
What it means here: A placement must be checked against the child, not just against the provider's paperwork. A pre-placement profile is the child's own evidence at that decision point.
What it says: Statutory multi-agency guidance setting out how practitioners identify and respond to abuse, including criminal and sexual exploitation.
What it means here: A placement that ignores a stated vulnerability is a safeguarding question, not only an equality one. The profile is a protective factor that can be evidenced.
The cliff edge — transition to adulthood
What it says: Local authorities must assess a child likely to have needs for care and support as they approach adulthood, and must do so early enough for support to be in place when it is needed.
What it means here: Transition is already a legal duty with a 'not too late' rule. The profile is the continuity the duty is trying to create between children's and adults' services.
What it says: Policy, not law: a Youth Guarantee so that every 18 to 21 year old in England has access to learning, training, an apprenticeship or help to find work, plus a guaranteed place in education or training for all 16 and 17 year olds.
What it means here: A guarantee needs a handover. A young person arriving at 18 with a two-year record of what works is what a guarantee can actually act on.
What it says: Proposed reform of the SEND system, including Specialist Provision Packages intended to form the basis for future EHC plans, and national standards.
What it means here: Policy is moving toward portable, person-centred records. A profile built from the person's own words is aligned with that direction rather than against it.
What it says: Introduces compulsory Children Not in School registers in every local authority area in England, so children being educated outside school can be identified.
What it means here: For the first time, local authorities must be able to see the home-educated and out-of-school population. That is exactly the group whose capacity record has never existed anywhere.
Where the law stops and this starts
Five gaps. Each one is the reason the profile exists, stated without exaggeration.
Nobody is required to ask before the placement
The Equality Act duty is anticipatory in principle, but there is no prescribed instrument that makes a setting collect a young person's own account before a placement starts. In practice the question is often asked after something has gone wrong, or not at all.
Here: The profile exists before the placement, is read at the matching stage, and is written in calm conditions with nobody watching.
EHC plans are about provision, not preference
An EHC plan records needs and provision. It is written in professional language, owned by the local authority, and says very little about what the young person actually likes, avoids, or wants to try.
Here: The profile is written by the young person, in their words, and answers the questions a plan does not: what holds my attention, what I will not tolerate, when my head works.
The adjustments record starts too late
The Health Adjustment Passport and Access to Work both begin at the point of employment or the move into work. By then the young person has often already had a placement fail.
Here: It starts at 14, three or four years before it is needed, and can be handed over at every stage in between.
Everything good is gated behind a diagnosis or a plan
Supported internships require an EHC plan. Access to Work requires a disability or health condition and an age of 16. Both are right for the people who qualify. Neither helps the young person mid-assessment, undiagnosed, or refused a plan.
Here: No diagnosis is asked for anywhere. The profile describes what happens and what helps, which needs no label to be true.
The record never travels with the person
A young person tells a tutor, then a work experience coordinator, then a college, then an employer, then an assessor. Each time it is from memory, and each time it can be doubted.
Here: One record, dated, portable, and given by the person who owns it. When it is shared, a copy goes with a date on it, and the young person can withdraw it.
Why it reads as progressive rather than invented
Six claims, each one checkable against the sources above.
- 1.It starts at 14, not at the job offer. No existing instrument does this.
- 2.The young person authors it. Plans and passports are written about them or with them; this is written by them.
- 3.No diagnosis is required or recorded. The record describes what happens and what helps, which is the only thing a placement can actually act on.
- 4.It is read before the placement, not after. Matching happens against the person, so prevention replaces remedy.
- 5.It is one record across the whole journey — school, alternative provision, EHE, college, apprenticeship, work — instead of five accounts from memory.
- 6.It is given, not requested. Consent is the mechanism, which keeps it lawful under section 60 and keeps it the young person's.
The honest risk: Access to Work is being cut, not expanded
In 2026 the Access to Work scheme is under active reduction, with reports of widespread cuts to support packages and a policy direction toward supporting employers directly instead. Any concept that depends on an Access to Work grant being awarded is therefore fragile. This one does not. The profile is useful whether or not a grant is ever granted: it is what a college, a work experience host, a tutor or a supported internship has to act on under the Equality Act, using their own budget. Access to Work, when it is available, becomes the way a need is funded — never the reason the need was written down.
The protections the design already carries
A record about a child's neurology and sensory needs is special category data. These are the rules that shaped it, and each one is met by a design decision rather than a policy statement.
Health data, including neurodivergence and sensory need, is special category data with a higher bar for processing.
How it is met: The profile is private by default, held on the person's own account, and never processed for profiling or automated decisions.
Best interests of the child; clear language suited to age; data minimisation; parental controls explained to the child; profiling off by default.
How it is met: No profiling, no nudge techniques, no dark patterns, and a parent or carer's view is explained to the young person rather than hidden from them.
The child's best interests come first; the child's view must be heard and given due weight; disabled children have the right to dignity, self-reliance and active participation.
How it is met: The profile is the child's own voice in a decision that is usually made about them. Article 12 is the whole design.
The right to inclusive education and the right to work and employment on an equal basis with others, including reasonable accommodation.
How it is met: Prevention, not remedy: the accommodation is designed in before the placement begins.
From 16, a young person is presumed to have capacity to make their own decisions; below 16, Gillick competence recognises that a child may understand enough to decide for themselves.
How it is met: A 14 year old's own words are the content of the record, not a parent's summary of them. A parent holds the account; the young person holds the voice.
An employer generally may not ask about disability or health before offering work.
How it is met: The reason the profile must be given, never requested. Consent is the mechanism that keeps it lawful — and keeps it the young person's.
Twelve pieces of content this produces
Each one stands on a source above, so it can be written without a single unsupported claim. Written one at a time, lowest effort first.
The two conversations
Every young person in England is entitled to two careers guidance meetings in eight years. What is meant to happen in between?
Anchored in: Gatsby Benchmark 8; Education Act 1997 s.42A.
For: Careers leaders, SENCOs · Could run in: TES, Careers Matters
What the Equality Act already asks for, and nobody collects
Reasonable adjustments must be anticipated. There is no prescribed way to find out what is needed. Here is one.
Anchored in: Equality Act 2010 ss.20, 39, 149.
For: HR, college principals, local authority SEND leads · Could run in: Personnel Today, LocalGov
Section 60 is why the profile belongs to the young person
Employers cannot ask about health before offering work. The answer is not to ask less — it is to let the young person choose what to give.
Anchored in: Equality Act 2010 s.60; EHRC pre-employment guidance.
For: Employers, recruiters, employment lawyers · Could run in: Employers' Law, Personnel Today
Year 9 is too late to start asking
Preparation for adulthood becomes a legal focus at the Year 9 review. The answers need to already exist by then.
Anchored in: Children and Families Act 2014 Part 3; SEND Code of Practice 8.9–8.12.
For: Parent carers, SENCOs, SEND advisers · Could run in: SEN Magazine, Special Needs Jungle
The placement should not have to fail first
A failed work placement is usually a matching error, not a young person's failure. What would matching look like if the profile came first?
Anchored in: KCSIE 2026 para 210; Equality Act s.15.
For: Alternative provision leaders, work experience coordinators · Could run in: SEN Magazine, AP sector press
Diagnosis is not the gateway
Supported internships need an EHC plan. Access to Work needs a condition and an age of 16. Who is left out, and what would include them?
Anchored in: DfE supported internships guidance; gov.uk Access to Work eligibility.
For: Policy, parent carers, youth employment · Could run in: Learning Disability Today, YoungMinds
35%
Only around a third of autistic employees are fully open at work. A profile that describes need without requiring disclosure is the workaround.
Anchored in: Buckland Review of Autism Employment, February 2024.
For: Employers, neurodiversity networks · Could run in: Personnel Today, HR Magazine
The passport that starts at fourteen
Government is already piloting an adjustments passport. It starts at the job offer. Why does it not start at school?
Anchored in: DWP Health Adjustment Passport; Buckland Review passport recommendation.
For: DWP-facing policy, disability charities · Could run in: Disability Rights UK, Policy Press
What a Children Not in School register will show
Local authorities will finally be able to see the out-of-school population. What will they be able to say about each child?
Anchored in: Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.
For: Local authorities, EHE community, AP · Could run in: LocalGov, Education Otherwise
Packages need people in them
The 2026 SEND reform proposes Specialist Provision Packages as the basis for future plans. A package describes provision. What describes the person?
Anchored in: SEND reform consultation 2026; schools white paper.
For: Policy, SEND sector · Could run in: Special Needs Jungle, Schools Week comment
The cliff edge at 18, in dates
Care Act transition duties say support must be in place in time. What does 'in time' look like counted backwards from a birthday?
Anchored in: Care Act 2014 ss.58–66; Get Britain Working Youth Guarantee.
For: Parent carers, social workers, transitions leads · Could run in: Community Care, SEN Magazine
Prevention is cheaper than a failed placement
A placement that collapses costs a provider, a college, a local authority and a young person. The record that prevents it costs an hour.
Anchored in: Equality Act ss.15, 20, 149; KCSIE 2026.
For: Commissioners, MAT CEOs, finance directors · Could run in: Schools Week, MJ (Municipal Journal)
Checked against the primary source or the government page for each item in November 2026. This is a working dossier, not legal advice: before quoting any of it in a funding bid or a letter to a local authority, open the source and check it still says what it said.