Ofsted and CQC give thumbs up for SEND improvement plan by Central Bedfordshire Council

The written statement of action was submitted by Central Bedfordshire Council and Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) after a critical report.

The Ofsted/CQC inspection found “significant areas of weakness in the local practice”.

The report said: “Too many families feel like they are bounced around services with little meaningful help.

“Despite creating new staffing positions to react faster to SEND children’s needs, the time taken has had a negative impact on outcomes for children and young people over the past few years.”

CBC has confirmed: “We’ve received formal notification that our written statement of action has been approved by Ofsted and the CQC.

“It was jointly submitted with the CCG to the regulators on September 1st.

“The statement sets out our commitment to improving the six key areas of weakness identified during the SEND joint area inspection, which took place in November 2019.

“Some of the inspection areas of weakness overlap and have been combined to formulate four themes for improvement.”

These areas for the local authority and CCG to progress are:

> The quality and oversight of education, health and care (EHC) plans;

> SEND outcomes and strategy;

> Co-production;

> The local offer.

CBC said: “We’ve engaged with the SNAP parent carer forum, other parents and carers, as well as SEND professionals to ensure there are clear actions across all areas in education, care and health.

“We recognise that our local children, young people, and their families deserve much better services in response to their needs.

“We want to cultivate a culture in Central Bedfordshire that values all children and young people, while promoting their potential.”

Ofsted and the CQC said: “The statement is deemed to be fit for purpose in setting out how the significant areas of weakness identified in the published report will be improved.

“There’s a clear multi-agency approach in the creation and proposed delivery of the council and the CCG’s written response.

“Increased staffing capacity provides a stronger foundation for the area to monitor children and young people on part-time timetables, and improve the timeliness and quality of annual reviews.”

There were some suggested areas for amendment noted within the response, which will be considered at the next SEND partnership board, according to CBC.

The local authority has started work on some of the actions already, such as commissioning an external SEND Specialist Team to review its EHC plans, recruiting more SEND staff and catching up with a backlog of annual reviews.

New training for SEND staff is in the process of being commissioned.

“The Department of Education and NHS England will keep in close contact with us as we deliver the plan,” explained the council.

“Through our engagement with parents to develop the statement we know other areas of the SEND service need to improve.

“We’ve heard this feedback and will address these issues through projects around school transport, SEND provision in schools and community health services.”

Progress will also be monitored by CBC’s children’s services overview and scrutiny committee and its health and wellbeing board.