Following the Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) joint inspection of our special educational needs and disability (SEND) services we have formed the Lancashire SEND Partnership.
The partnership brings together all the agencies in Lancashire which provide the SEND services for children, young people, their parents and carers. It will ensure everybody can work together to deliver the best outcomes for children, young people and their families.
The report by Ofsted and CQC highlighted a number of significant areas of weakness, which is a concern to everyone involved. As a parent or carer with a child or young person using our SEND services, we apologise for any alarm this may have caused.
Since the report was published we have established the SEND Partnership Board produced an action plan, made some significant changes to improve key areas of services and recruited new people to the team.
The Department for Education (DfE) will be holding regular reviews to monitor our progress.
Our improvement journey has only just begun and we will continue to share more about the changes taking place via regular updates so look out for notices on SEND local offer website and our Facebook page.
The SEND Partnership Board is responsible for decisions made to improve the services. It has representatives from:
You can read more information about the membership and role of the board in the terms of reference (PDF 163KB).
Our action plan, also known as a written statement of action, sets out the changes we need to make to address the recommendations that Ofsted and the CQC made in their report.
The action plan has been produced by the key partners who form the SEND Partnership Board which is accountable to the Health and Wellbeing Board, the NHS and the council.
Working together is very important to making the plan succeed. Further development will take place with individual working groups including children, young people and their families.
To support the action plan, the county council and the six clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have already invested significant resources by recruiting a number of new positions. These include:
We will provide more details about these roles here soon.
If you would like to make a suggestion or have a comment about the Lancashire SEND Partnership, please email SENDpartnership@lancashire.gov.uk or call 01772 532 713.
We will keep this page up to date with news and information so look out for updates on the SEND local offer website and our Facebook page.
Find out what's happening in the special educational needs and disability (SEND) service across Lancashire.
November
Ofsted and CQC inspection completed
January
Ofsted and CQC report published
March
SEND action plan created
April
DfE and NHS England monitoring visit
May
Action plan approved by Ofsted
SEND partnership launched
June
Parent/carer engagement launched
July
DfE and NHS England monitoring visit
August
DCO's appointed
September
Parent/Carer reps appointed
Education engagement launched
October
DfE and NHS England monitoring visit
The board is being led by senior post holders from the council and NHS:
