Damning report on Devon services for SEND children
The government is threatening to intervene.
Last updated 13th Jul 2022
The government is threatening to intervene after a scathing new report revealed Devon’s services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have not improved.
Four areas of “significant concern” were identified by an inspector in December 2018 following a joint visit by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC), but a revisit this May found “progress has not been made” in fixing any of them.
Devon County Council and NHS Devon, which works in partnership to run SEND services in the county, have both apologised.
Representatives from the Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England will meet council and local health leaders later this month to discuss next steps, which could include an intervention by the new education secretary James Cleverly.
The findings put further pressure on the county council’s underperforming children’s services department, which was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted in a separate inspection in 2020.
Monitoring visits since then, however, have shown some signs of improvement under a new leadership team appointed last year.
The initial joint inspection into Devon’s SEND services in 2019 found that staff needed to improve their understanding of the overall strategy, improve communication, improve support for children with autism and improve the speed and quality of education, health and care plans – legal documents that outline a young person’s special educational needs.
As a result of the findings, Her Majesty’s chief inspector decided a ‘written statement of action’ was required because of “significant areas of weakness in the area’s practice.”
However, in a new letter following a revisit by Ofsted and the CQC in May, chief inspector Stephen McShane concluded Devon “has not made sufficient progress in addressing any of the significant weaknesses identified at the initial inspection.”
The document outlines at length the current failings of the service and the impact it is having on young people and their families.
In a letter to the county council and NHS Devon, Fiona Nzegwu, deputy director at the Department for Education said: “The issues raised in the Ofsted/CQC report are serious and it is concerning that progress has not been made in any of the four areas of weakness previously identified'.