OFSTED/CQC
Local Area OFSTED and CQC Inspection 2026 is underway
What is a SEND Local Area Inspection?
A SEND Local Area Inspection is when Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visit a local area to check how well children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are being supported.
In Essex, the inspection looks at how Essex County Council (the Local Authority), health services, and social care work together to support children and young people with SEND from birth to age 25.
Inspectors focus on areas such as:
· How early children’s needs are identified
· How well support is put in place in schools, colleges, and the community
· Whether parents and carers are listened to and involved in decisions
· How well young people are prepared for adulthood, including independence, employment, and health
Has Essex been inspected before?
Yes.
· Essex had a full SEND Local Area Inspection in September–October 2019
· This was followed by an inspection revisit in May 2022
The 2019 inspection found significant weaknesses, meaning services were not working well enough together to support children and young people with SEND.
The 2022 revisit found that Essex had made sufficient progress in addressing the issues identified in 2019. Inspectors recognised improvements, while also noting that more work was still needed.
You can read about this in more detail below.
What does a SEND Local Area Inspection mean for families?
Inspectors want to understand what support is really like for families in everyday life. They will:
· Ask parents and carers to complete a dedicated inspection survey
· Collate experienced and views through dedicated tracking meetings
· Look at how easy it is to access information, advice, and support
· Check whether services and provision are making a positive difference for children, young people, and their families
What is the role of the Parent Carer Forum?
Essex Family Forum represents the views and experiences of parents and carers of children and young people with SEND across the Essex Local Authority footprint.
During a SEND Local Area Inspection, Essex Family Forum:
· Has a dedicated meeting with Ofsted and CQC inspectors, sharing common experiences and key themes from families
· Helps ensure the parent and carer voice is heard in key inspection meetings with the Local Authority and health providers
· Supports families to understand the inspection process and encourages parents and carers to share their views through surveys and feedback
The forum does not deal with individual cases. Instead, it brings together shared experiences to help improve services for all families.
We also share with inspectors:
· Graffiti Wall reports, where families tell us what is working well, what is not working well, and what could be improved
Survey findings, including:
- Mental health in schools
- EHCP process
- Survey data from our ” currently live” Family Impact Survey 2025/26
- Historic Family Impact Survey reports
Who else is involved?
The inspection also looks at how health services work with the Local Authority.
In Essex, this includes the Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), which plan and commission NHS health services for children and young people with SEND:
· Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB
· Suffolk and North East Essex ICB
· Mid and South Essex ICB
Because ICBs commission services, inspectors also look at how well health providers deliver SEND support. This includes services run by:
· HCRG Care Group
· NELFT (North East London NHS Foundation Trust)
· Provide
· ESNEFT (East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust)
· EPUT (Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust)
Inspectors check how well these services work together with Essex County Council, schools, and families to meet children and young people’s needs.
What happens after the inspection?
After the inspection:
· A report is published explaining what is working well and what needs to improve
· The local area is given an overall outcome, which will be one of the following:
o Typically positive experiences and outcomes
o Inconsistent experiences and outcomes
o Widespread and/or systemic failings
The inspection outcome will help shape future plans and improvements for SEND services and provision in Essex.
You can read more about the inspection process and outcomes, including what happens after an inspection in the Guidance “Area SEND inspections: framework and handbook” HERE
You can share your views with Ofsted and CQC directly here: https://ofsted.smartsurvey.co.uk/p/AreaSend/10364949
The link is open from 5 January 2026 until 9am on 13 January 2026.
Letter for parent carers from LA and ICBs
EFF are extremely disappointed by this news, please read our response by clicking the image opposite.
We are also concerned that this deferral was granted by the CQC and Ofsted and have written to them separately to express this which you can read HERE.
EFF response to local area SEND inspection deferral
The OFSTED/CQC SEND revisit outcome
The OFSTED/CQC SEND revisit took place in May 2022 and Inspectors were focused on measuring progress against the three Areas of Significant Weakness highlighted in the original SEND Inspection in October 2019:
- Potential Over-Identification of Moderate Learning Difficulties
- Quality of Education, Health and Care Plans
- Joint Commissioning
Following the revisit, Inspectors have issued their Revisit Outcome letter. They have concluded that the Local Area (which includes Essex County Council and the various NHS Integrated Care Systems (previously Clinical Commissioning Groups) have made sufficient progress against these 3 specific areas.
Clare Kershaw – ECC’s Director of Education has written a letter to Essex parent/carers and other stakeholders in response to the outcome of the revisit – you can read that here.
To read our statement on the outcome of the revisit please click here: Essex Family Forum Revisit Outcome Statement
What happened during the OFSTED/CQC revisit?
We feel we accurately represented the lived experiences of SEND families in Essex. Thanks to the feedback and experiences you regularly share with us, we were able to uploaded a significant amount of evidence prior to the revisit. This included the reports from our surveys since 2019 (Family Impact Surveys 2020 and 2022, Neurodevelopment Survey, Equipment Survey), our Graffiti Wall reports and our Impact Statement.
During the revisit we presented our own overview of progress during the Opening Meeting, attended every Focus Group representing your views, the daily Keeping in Touch meeting and the Closing Meeting. As the Parent Carer Forum, we had our own meeting with Inspectors, attended by our two Strategic Development Co-ordinators and our Chair and Vice-Chair.
We would like to say thank you to all the families that responded to the OFSTED survey and our own Family Champion volunteers who spoke to inspectors virtually.
We’d also like to thank the support groups whose views contributed to our Impact Statement and who also met with inspectors and were able to share the experiences of the families they support.
OFSTED/CQC Inspection 2019
For information on the inspection principles, guidance and the main judgements that inspectors make when inspecting area SEND – Click here
To view the inspector’s report – click here
To view Essex Family Forum’s statement on the Inspector’s Report – click here
To view the full Written Statement of Action – click here
Essex Family Forum Statement on the Essex Local Area Written Statement of Action in relation to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
Following the Local Area OFSTED/CQC SEND Inspection which took place between 30th September and 4th October 2019, the Inspectors produced their Report (published on 23rd December 2019) which highlighted three areas of significant weakness. These weaknesses were:
1) The potential over-identification of children and young people with Moderate Learning Difficulties and the need to understand the reasons behind this and the accuracy of the identification figures.
2) The quality of EHC Plans – with particular concern around securing the right advice and providing the right information within the plans to enable high-quality outcomes for children and young people. This led to Inspectors concluding that the strategic oversight of plans is not effective.
3) There is poor joint commissioning of services between the Local Authority and their health colleagues in the various NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
After the report was published, the Local Authority (LA) and the CCGs had to produce a “Written Statement of Action” to outline how they intend to address these weaknesses and the timescales within which they will do so. This Action Plan has now been submitted to and approved by the Inspectors. The LA and the CCGs will be subject to regular monitoring visits from the Department for Education and NHS England, and a re-inspection would normally take place in 18 months’ time. However, the current COVID-19 situation will have a sizeable impact on the timescales, not least because the LA’s Education & Social Care teams and NHS staff are having to divert their central focus on managing the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable families (which includes those families with children who have Special Educational Needs & Disabilities.)