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In January 2023, OfSTED and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) adopted a new framework for jointly inspecting local area arrangements to support children and young people with SEND.
The purpose of inspection is to provide an independent, external evaluation of the effectiveness of the local area partnership’s arrangements for children and young people with SEND and, where appropriate, recommend what should be done to improve arrangements.
The inspection will lead to judgements about the impact of partnership arrangements for children and young people with SEND, provide information to help improve provision and include an evaluation of the local authority’s commissioning and oversight of alternative provision.
The new inspection framework builds on the framework first introduced in 2016. This was focused on how effectively local areas deliver new statutory duties introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Code of Practice 2015. Dorset Council was inspected under this framework in 2019 and was a chosen as a pilot area for the new joint framework inspection process, receiving an inspection as part of this pilot in 2022.
The new inspection framework assesses how effectively education, health, and social care services in the area deliver statutory duties. It takes into account the outcomes from the national SEND review 2022: right support, right place, right time.
The new framework focuses upon:
The joint area SEND inspection will take place over three weeks.
In the first two weeks, the local area partnership will provide a range of local data and information. This includes person-level data (lists of all children and young people with SEND who live in the local authority area, including those educated out of area) and information about how local education, health and care services commission and deliver services for children and young people with SEND and their families.
Inspectors will select specific children and young people’s cases for a deep dive. They will take a close look at documents and data relating to these children and young people and will seek to talk with them and their families as part of the inspection. They will also ask for surveys to be shared with all local children and young people with SEND and their parents or carers.
In the third week of the inspection, inspectors will undertake fieldwork on site, including meetings with leaders and practitioners and visits to a sample of local education, health and care settings. During visits, inspectors will evaluate children and young people’s experiences and outcomes by reviewing documents and records and talking to practitioners.
The settings visited are not subject to evaluation or judgement under this inspection, as each will have their own inspection arrangements, but their records and practice will be scrutinised. The joint SEND inspection is focused on how effectively local education, health, and care partners work together to improve experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND, with shared accountability.
The inspection framework and handbook sets out the evaluation criteria inspectors will use to judge the area. Essentially, they will consider the extent to which children and young people:
Inspectors will also determine how effectively local area partners work together to plan, evaluate and develop the SEND system, including the extent to which leaders:
Following the inspection, one of three potential judgements will be given:
Ofsted and CQC work together to inspect education, health and care services for children and young people with SEND in a local area, to make sure they are effective. They have produced a three minute video that explains the local area inspection process and how you can get involved in supporting inspectors to understand what it is like to be a child or young person with SEND.
Between 26 February and 15 March 2024 OfSTED and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited us to undertake our full Local Area SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Inspection.
Read the full inspection report.
Local Areas have to prepare an action plan which sets out the work of the Local Area Partnership. This plan is developed from the report.