Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to implement guidance to Regional Expert Partnerships on how many local partners they need to engage with when refining proposals in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plans published in March 2023.

The department will be sharing strategic guidance with all Regional Expert Partnerships (REPs) for delivery of the Change Programme, which will include setting out the local partners they must engage with. Engagement with all partners across all local areas involved in the REPs, including schools, health partners and families, is integral to successfully delivering, testing and refining the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) reforms set out in the Improvement Plan.

Throughout the lifetime of the programme, there will be a constant feedback loop between the department and the REPs in order to monitor the findings and share learning and best practice. This will include the REPs feeding back on the progress of delivering the reforms and any barriers they may be facing. The department will be transparent throughout this process and is currently establishing how it will provide public updates as the programme progresses.

The department previously shared that all REPs would be led by a lead local authority, selected through objective criteria based on published SEND performance data. The department used this data to identify a shortlist of local authorities in each Department for Education region, who were subsequently invited to submit an expression of interest to be considered for the role. To be eligible for the shortlist, prospective lead local authorities must not:

• Have a live written statement of action from the previous Ofsted/ Care Quality Commission (CQC) Area SEND inspection framework.
• Have an 'inconsistent’ or ‘widespread/systemic failure’ outcome from the new Ofsted/CQC Area SEND inspection framework.
• Have a Section 114 notice.
• Be on our Safety Valve programme.

They must also be in the top 75% of authorities nationally against:

• Rates of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan assessment requests.
• Rates of EHC plan assessments completed in 20 weeks.
• Special Educational Needs exclusions.

The department then ranked the remaining authorities based on their Designated School Grant surplus/deficit and shortlisted the top three local authorities in each region.