Official Statistics

Main findings: Area SEND inspections and outcomes in England as at 31 December 2023

Published 5 June 2024

Applies to England

This is the main findings report for the area special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) inspections and outcomes in England 2024 release. The following are also available:

• underlying data
• methodology
• pre-release access list

Summary

This release contains outcomes for area SEND inspections carried out between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023.

Main findings

In January 2023, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) began carrying out joint inspections to inspect local services for children and young people with SEND under the new inspection framework.

During 2023, we carried out 26 full inspections in local areas across England. There are 3 possible outcomes. Seven inspections determined that local area partnerships’ SEND arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. Eleven inspections deemed arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes and the remaining 8 inspections concluded there are widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns.

Introduction

Ofsted and the CQC carry out joint inspections of local areas at the request of the Secretary of State for Education under section 20(1)(a) of the Children Act 2004.^{[footnote 1]}

Inspectors assess the extent to which the local area partners are complying with relevant legal duties relating to arrangements for children and young people with SEND. Relevant legal duties may include duties under the Children and Families Act 2014, the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998.

In 2016, Ofsted and the CQC were commissioned to carry out a one-off cycle of inspections to evaluate how well local areas had implemented the 2014 SEND reforms. We completed this programme of full inspections in 2022.^{[footnote 2]}

In late 2022, Ofsted and the CQC jointly launched a new area SEND inspection framework.^{[footnote 3]} The new framework has a greater focus on hearing directly from children and young people with SEND, and their families. This will allow inspectors to get a better understanding of what it’s like to be a child or young person with SEND in that local area. Inspections under the new framework commenced in January 2023.

There are 3 possible outcomes for full inspection outcomes, leading to different subsequent inspection activity:

• The local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership is taking action where improvements are needed.

• The local area partnership’s arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership must work jointly to make improvements.

• There are widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which the local area partnership must address urgently.

On occasion, we have summarised these inspection outcomes in this publication for ease of presentation.

Inspections evaluate how well members of a local area partnership work together to improve the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND. The focus is not on inspecting the specific individuals that work in the local area partnership.^{[footnote 4]}

When evaluating the local area partnership, inspectors focus mainly on how effectively the local authority and integrated care board (ICB) jointly plan, evaluate and develop services for children and young people with SEND. However, they also consider the duties of other area partners, which are set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 and described further in the SEND code of practice.

Inspections evaluate arrangements for all children and young people with SEND aged 0 to 25 covered by the SEND code of practice, including those who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan and those who receive special educational needs (SEN) support.

In January 2023, there were 517,000 children and young people aged up to 25 with an EHC plan. There were also over 1.1 million pupils receiving SEN support in school. Overall, more than 17.3% of children and young people in school are designated as having SEND.^{[footnote 5]}

The frequency and type of inspection activity for areas are based on inspection outcomes. All local areas will receive a full inspection at least once during a 5-year period. However, the frequency and type of inspection activity in any individual local area will be based on previous inspection outcomes and any relevant additional information received by Ofsted and the CQC.

This publication includes all area SEND inspections completed during 2023. We have published all the reports for this inspection activity. We have limited content for this publication because of the new inspection framework, but will expand this in future years as more inspections take place.

Inspections between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023

Following on from the initial cycle of inspections, Ofsted and the CQC began inspections under the new framework in January 2023.

During the 2023 calendar year, we carried out 26 full inspections in local areas across England.

Seven inspections determined that local area partnerships’ SEND arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership is taking action where improvements are needed.

Eleven inspections deemed that the local area partnership’s arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership must work jointly to make improvements.

The remaining 8 inspections in 2023 concluded there are widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which the local area partnership must address urgently. Local area partnerships must prepare and submit a priority area SEND action plan to His Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) addressing the identified areas for priority action.

Figure 1: Inspection outcomes as at 31 December 2023

^{Note: Number of local areas in brackets.
View data in an accessible table format}

Figure 2: Map showing inspection outcomes by local area as at 31 December 2023

^{Note: The map of England with a close-up of the London region visualise inspection outcomes as listed in the inspection data spreadsheet of this publication.
See the last worksheet in the ‘Area SEND inspection data spreadsheet’ to view this data in an accessible format.}

Next steps

The 3 possible full inspection outcomes lead to different subsequent inspection activity for Ofsted and the CQC.

Local area partnerships with typically positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND will usually receive a full inspection within 5 years.

Local area partnerships’ arrangements leading to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND will usually receive a full inspection within 3 years.

Where there are widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND that the local area partnership must address urgently, local area partnerships will receive a monitoring inspection, usually within 18 months, and a full inspection within 3 years.

Regardless of inspection outcome, local area partnerships will be invited to participate in engagement meetings with Ofsted and the CQC.

Glossary

Definitions of terms are in the statistical glossary.

Further information

Contacts

If you are a member of the public and have any comments or feedback on this publication, please contact Emma Martin on 0300 013 1975 or the area SEND data and analysis team on data.AreaSEND@ofsted.gov.uk.

Press enquiries should be sent to our press team on pressenquiries@ofsted.gov.uk.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Richard Fisher and Edwin Crossman for their contributions to this statistical release.

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Annex: data tables for figures

This section contains the underlying data in an accessible table format for all figures.

Data for Figure 1: Inspection outcomes as at 31 December 2023

Group	Typically positive experiences and outcomes	Inconsistent experiences and outcomes	Widespread and/or systemic failings	Total
Local areas	7	11	8	26

See Figure 1

1. A local area is the geographic footprint of a local authority. ↩

2. Inspection outcomes from the 2016–2022 area SEND inspection framework are available in Area SEND inspections and outcomes in England: management information autumn term 2022 to 2023. ↩

3. HMCI commentary: publishing our new area SEND framework, published 29 November 2022. ↩

4. ‘Local area partnership’ refers to those in education, health and care who are responsible for the strategic planning, commissioning, management, delivery and evaluation of arrangements for children and young people with SEND who live in a local area. ↩

5. Figures sourced from Department for Education statistical publications: Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2023 and Special educational needs in England, academic year 2022/23. ↩