Information includes the Leicestershire local area SEND inspection report, the Written Statement of Action developments (WSoA) and our SEND and Inclusion partnership.
The Children and Families Act of 2014 included reforms for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. The reforms put children and parents/carers at the heart of the SEND system. The reforms that are outlined within the SEND Code of Practice enable parents to have a role in shaping the support that they receive.
Crucial to our success in developing our services, is the important role that parent/carers and children and young people have in shaping the experience for children of Leicestershire with SEND. We would like to offer thanks to all those that have contributed to our work so far and to those engaged in supporting children and young people with SEND and their families across Leicestershire.
Our vision
Our vision in Leicestershire for children with special educational needs and disabilities is the same as for all children and young people – for them to achieve well in their education, to be cared for in safe and supportive families, participate and be involved in their communities and lead happy, safe and fulfilled lives.
Reports and inspections
SEND inspections
SEND services have been subject to external inspection led by Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) since 2015. This initial inspection regime was designed to monitor the extent to which local areas had implemented the 2014 Children’s Act. The inspections did not result in a judgement, but if any areas were deemed to have not made satisfactory progress, then an area could be issued with a Written Statement of Action. This would then result in a SEND Re-inspection to be carried out by Ofsted and CQC. If any areas were considered to have not made satisfactory progress, then this would result in an Accelerated Plan, likely to be monitored by DfE and/or NHS England.
Leicestershire was subject to a SEND inspection in February 2020. This did result in a Written Statement of Action on two areas (see the drop-down for Written Statement of Action). A SEND Re-inspection took place in November 2022 and resulted in an Accelerated Progress Plan (see the drop -down for Accelerated Progress Plan).
A new SEND inspection framework (GOV.UK) has been published and has been implemented since January 2023.
Regional support
The East Midlands developed a SEND Peer Challenge process based on the SEND inspection, enabling local areas to identify two areas for further investigation by peers within the region. Leicestershire welcomed a regional SEND Peer Challenge team in November 2021.
The review team consisted of the regional co-ordinator, four senior managers within SEND services, a parent/carer representative and young reviewers from Nottingham City. A range of documents and data were provided prior to the review, with focus groups being held with young people, parent/carers, a range of managers, commissioned and providers, along with representatives from across education.
Over 50 practitioners, young people and parent/carers were interviewed, spanning over 40 hours of interviewer time.
The findings from the report were taken forward as actions in preparation for the SEND Re-inspection.
SEND Joint Strategic Needs Assessment
The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is a document that provides the evidence and actions for the development of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy to improve the health and wellbeing of the local community and reduce inequalities for all ages.
The SEND JSNA chapter will influence the work of the SEND and Inclusion Board through the SEND and Inclusion Strategy and the SEND Joint Commissioning Strategy.
Quality Assurance
The SEN Code of Practice 2015 provides the statutory guidance for the responsibilities of children and young people with SEND.
A SEND Quality Assurance and Learning Framework has been developed to ensure services are compliant with SEND legislation and the SEND Code of Practice 2015, whilst also evaluating:
- Whether children and young people, parents and carers are signposted to and receive high quality information and advice
- The response to identification of a need is prompt and easy to secure (we adhere to the principle of 'tell us once')
- The quality and consistency of practice across services and multi-agency working within the local area
- The timeliness and effectiveness of support received when it is needed, and
- Whether plans are person-centred and articulate clear and aspirational outcomes for the child/young person
Regular reports on progress and the actions being undertaken are taken to the SEND and Inclusion Board for sharing with their agencies.
The key findings can be found below:
SEND and Inclusion Board
The SEND and Inclusion Board was established in May 2017. The purpose of the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Inclusion Board, is to provide strategic leadership to the commissioning, development, delivery and monitoring of provision and services for children and young people with SEND living and / or attending school in Leicestershire. It is to ensure that service provision meets assessed needs, is effective and efficient and improves outcomes for children, young people and their families.
The work of the SEND and Inclusion Board is directed by the development and monitoring of the SEND and Inclusion Strategy 2020 to 2023.
The SEND and Inclusion Board is made up of partners working across Leicestershire on behalf of children and young people with SEND. It is made up of education, health and social care senior managers, schools, the Lead and Deputy Member for children’s services and the Leicestershire Parent Carer Forum.
Details of how the SEND and Inclusion Board links into other partners reporting structure:
SEND and Inclusion Strategy
The strategy sets out how the Leicestershire local area plans to support children and young people with SEND aged 0-25 years. It outlines what needs to change so that our children and young people achieve their best possible outcomes, in line with the SEND reforms, and in light of our current local position and other local developments.
Consultation has taken place with our parents/carers and children and young people, to understand how services have worked with them and what needs to change. From the consultation responses and work taking place across services, the strategy sets out our priorities for the period 2020 to 2023 and is underpinned by an action plan setting out how these priorities will be achieved.
- Priority 1 – To identify and meet children’s special educational needs as early as possible
- Priority 2 – Responsive, inclusive and effective provision for all children and young people with SEND
- Priority 3 – Understanding and preparation for change (Transitions)
- Priority 4 – Strategic partnerships, joint working, joint commissioning and consultation
- Priority 5 – Develop the workforce
Written Statement of Action
The Leicestershire local area was subject to a SEND inspection in February 2020. Inspectors look at how well local areas identify pupils with SEND, how their needs are met and the outcomes for children and young people.
As part of the evidence gathering, the inspectors talk to groups of professionals, visit schools and meet with parents/carers and children and young people, as well as looking through documents available related to SEND which enables the inspectors to make judgements on progress made against the SEND reforms. The inspection is not graded, but the local area receives a letter outlining strengths and areas for development. If it is considered that there are areas of serious weakness, this results in a Written Statement of Action. In Leicestershire, the local authority and the area’s clinical commissioning group are jointly responsible for submitting the written statement to Ofsted on the following area of weakness:
- The absence of a clearly defined joint commissioning strategy for 0-25 SEND provision
- Systemic weaknesses in the quality of EHC plans, including: the drawing up of EHC plans; the inaccuracy with which the plans reflect children and young people’s needs; the absence of good-quality outcomes in EHC plans; the inconsistency with which plans include contributions from education and particularly health and care professionals; the lack of any formal quality assurance framework to improve new and existing plans.
The local area has worked with parent / carers and young people to capture their views on how services work with them and on the Education, Health and Care Plan process. These views have been taken into account for the development of the action plan and we will continue to work with families as developments take place to ensure that the changes are making a positive difference to our family’s experience.
Following the inspection, partners have co-produced an action plan (a Written Statement of Action) which has been received positively and approved by OFSTED, who, along with the Department for Education and NHS England and NHS Improvement, will measure our progress over the next eighteen months.
Update
The local area for SEND has reached the 18 month timescale when Leicestershire can be re-inspected.
The local area continues to work on updating progress against the Written Statement of Action and working with the Department for Education and NHS England / NHS Improvement to ensure the local area is able to demonstrate ‘sufficient progress’.
Accelerated Progress Plan
The Leicestershire local area was subject to a SEND inspection in February 2020. No judgement was given to the inspection cycle but the local area was given notice that it was required to produce a Written Statement of Action. The progress on the action plan have been overseen by the DfE and NHS England in preparation for a SEND Re-inspection by Ofsted and CQC.
The local area was subject to a SEND Re-inspection, which took place from the 14 to 16 November 2022. The inspectors found that area 1 (lack of a joint commissioning strategy) had made satisfactory progress. However, inspectors found that area 2 (systemic weaknesses in the quality of EHC plans, including the following:
- drawing up of EHC plans; the inaccuracy with which the plans reflect children and young people’s needs
- the absence of good-quality outcomes in EHC plans
- the inconsistency with which plans include contributions from education and particularly health and care professionals
- the lack of any formal quality assurance framework to improve new and existing plans) had not made satisfactory progress.
The local area was required to develop an Accelerated progress Plan (APP). This sets out how the local area will accelerate the progress made towards making satisfactory progress on this area. The APP was signed of in March 2023. The plan will be formally monitored by DfE and NHS England in 6-months’ time (September 2023).
SEND Joint Commissioning Strategy
Our joint LLR SEND Commissioning Strategy, 2021-24, which has been developed by Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Councils and the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s) for the area, has now gone live.
The strategy contains a high-level vision for joint commissioning that ‘we will work together across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland to improve the outcomes for children and young people with SEND’ and a set of priorities for the focus of joint work in the coming 3 years.
In November 2020 we launched a programme of engagement to ask you about our draft Joint LLR SEND Commissioning Strategy, 2021-24. The engagement ran for a period of two months (November and December 2020) and we would like to thank you for your contributions. The feedback and comments received have been used to amend the strategy which has now been signed-off by all of the partner agencies involved. More information on the engagement can be found under the Joint LLR SEND Commissioning Strategy 2021-24 section on our You said, we did page.
The final version of the Joint LLR SEND Commissioning Strategy, 2021-24 is hosted on the Leicester City Council website.
We have produced an easy-read version of the strategy which you can look at either on the Leicester City Council website where the strategy is hosted (link above) or here:
On 29 November 2021 we formally launched the strategy and a recording of this session is available through the LLR Joint SEND Commissioning Strategy launch video (YouTube).
Children and Family Services Commissioning Statement
The Commissioning statement sets out the Council’s commissioning intentions regarding how we will commission services and our key priorities for the next three years. This takes into account other departmental strategic documents, e.g. Placement Market Position and Sufficiency statement 2021 – 2023 and the LLR SEND Joint Commissioning Strategy and takes into account the Defining Children and Family Services for the Future and High Needs Block programme developments.
Children and Family Services Commissioning Statement Opens new window
Consultations and engagement
Working with parent/carers and children and young people is the thread that runs throughout the SEND Code of Practice. The term that we use is co-production. This is where professionals in services work with the people that use their services and our strategic partners from the Parent Carer Forum to be part of influencing the designing, commissioning and delivering of services.
The Leicestershire SEND Hub is a member of the SEND and Inclusion Board and is the strategic partner for representing the voice of parents/carers of children and young people with SEND. The SEND Hub are newly established but already have a large following on Facebook. They are involved in a health initiative to establish additional workers to support children and young people’s mental health and are also bringing to the attention of the Local Authority the voice of parent/carers around the Short Break process and communication with SENA.