Special Educational Needs: Reviews

(asked on 28th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to make local areas more accountable for fulfilling their statutory obligations to children and young people with SEND; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 6th July 2021

We are committed to ensuring greater stability of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services as we enter the recovery phase following the COVID-19 outbreak. We aim to have clear oversight of local areas’ performance in delivering SEND services, including those that had weaknesses before the COVID-19 outbreak and those that are struggling to respond to the challenges that the COVID-19 outbreak has brought. With this in mind, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) re-started their revisit programme of areas where SEND services need to improve that received a Written Statement of Action in April, and full inspections in June.

We are working closely with Ofsted, CQC, our professional advisory service and our delivery support partners to identify, support and intervene effectively and early in underperforming areas.

We recognise the need to strengthen accountability in the SEND system and, therefore, the department, with the support of the Department of Health and Social Care, has commissioned Ofsted and the CQC to develop a new area SEND inspection framework to launch after the existing inspection cycle has finished. Learning from the published assessment of the current approach, this will include a greater focus on the experience of children and young people with SEND, and their families, and give more prominence to the quality integration and commissioning of education, health and care services. The new framework will take into account the COVID-19 outbreak’s impact on services and on children, young people and families.

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