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Mehrnaz, Quality Assurance Officer at Birmingham City Council, shares how they use benchmarking data to support quality improvements
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For local authorities, understanding the quality of Education, Health and Care Plans is essential to driving continuous improvement and ensuring children and young people receive the support they need. However, assessing quality in isolation can make it difficult to understand whether local performance reflects wider national trends or highlights areas requiring targeted intervention.
Benchmarking allows local authorities to compare their EHCP quality against national averages using data collected through the Invision360 EHCP QA Module. Comparisons can be made using:
• EHCP quality grades
• Statutory compliance scores
• A combination of both measures
The benchmarking dashboard provides flexible, customisable views, filters and reporting options, allowing users to focus on specific cohorts, time periods or EHCP sections.
National averages are calculated from participating local authorities using the Invision360 EHCP QA Module that have completed at least 10 audits. With more than 60 local authorities across England using the software, benchmarking provides a robust external point of reference.
Users can view overall quality and compliance scores alongside detailed section-by-section performance. Additional dashboard blocks can be created to compare different cohorts or focus on particular sections of the EHCP, such as Section A or Section E, helping services identify strengths, challenges and emerging trends.
Mehrnaz, Quality Assurance Officer at Birmingham City Council, shares how Birmingham uses benchmarking data to support quality improvement across its EHCP process.
As of April 2026, Birmingham maintained 13,779 EHCPs and completed 677 audits during the first six months of 2026.
As one of the largest SEND services in England, Birmingham faced the challenge of developing meaningful quality assurance intelligence across a significant volume of plans. While individual audits provided valuable information, benchmarking enabled the authority to understand broader trends both within Birmingham and across the national landscape.
Quarter 1 2026 benchmarking data showed that, compared with national averages, Birmingham had:
• Fewer Bronze plans
• Fewer Significant Gap plans
• More Silver plans
Initially, Birmingham's Gold grading rate stood at 11%. However, the authority operates a robust moderation process whereby all plans graded as Gold or Significant Gap are reviewed by the Quality and Improvement Team to ensure consistent application of quality standards.
Following moderation, some plans were reclassified as Silver or Significant Gap, resulting in a lower proportion of Gold plans when compared with the national average. Birmingham views this moderation process as critical to maintaining confidence in the reliability and consistency of its quality assurance findings.
The authority also benefits from completing a high volume of audits each month, providing greater confidence that the trends identified genuinely reflect plan quality across the service.
Following Birmingham's 2021 Ofsted inspection, which identified inconsistencies in the quality of final EHCPs, the authority sought additional ways to strengthen its quality assurance processes.
While internal quality assurance mechanisms were already in place, benchmarking provided several additional benefits:
An external point of reference enabling Birmingham to understand its position relative to national averages
Validation of internal findings testing whether internal quality assurance judgements in regard to strengths and weaknesses aligned with national averages.
Stronger strategic discussions through a shared evidence base for conversations with senior leaders, managers and partners. Rather than relying on anecdotal feedback, discussions could be informed by objective data and measurable trends.
Turning benchmarking insights into action identifying recurring themes and areas for development, Birmingham introduced a range of targeted improvement initiatives.
Quality assurance checklist to ensure greater consistency between auditors and case officers when assessing plans.
A Good Plan Guide was created as part of Birmingham's Elevate Project, to provide clear examples of what high-quality EHCPs should look like and support consistent practice across teams.
Targeted training on Outcomes. Benchmarking consistently highlighted Section E (Outcomes) as an area requiring further development. In response, Birmingham delivered targeted training to help case officers develop stronger, SMART outcomes when producing EHCPs.
Enhanced moderation to ensure routine feedback was provided to case officers, helping them apply learning from one audit to future plans.
Thematic audits to explore recurring issues in greater depth, rather than relying solely on headline scores and overall grades.
Multi-agency improvement to engage health and social care partners. As EHCP quality is a shared responsibility across agencies, the evidence provided through audits helped facilitate constructive conversations and joint improvement activity.
Since adopting the Invision360 EHCP QA Module in 2022, Birmingham's benchmarking data has demonstrated a clear improvement journey.
The authority has seen:
• A significant reduction in Significant Gap plans
• An increase in Silver graded plans
Importantly, benchmarking has also helped Birmingham understand that improvement is rarely linear. Where performance challenges emerged, the authority was able to place these within a wider national context and understand whether issues were unique to Birmingham or reflected broader sector trends.
The section-level benchmarking data has been particularly valuable. By targeting specific areas of weakness, Birmingham has been able to monitor the impact of improvement activities over time.
For example, between Quarter 3 and Quarter 4 of 2025, improvements were observed in:
• Section E (Outcomes), with an increase in Gold gradings following targeted outcomes training.
• Social Care Sections D, H1 and H2, where reductions in Bronze and Significant Gap gradings indicated improving quality.
Birmingham's Quarter 1 2026 benchmarking data indicates that the authority continues to perform favourably against national averages while also completing a significantly higher number of audits than many participating local authorities.
The intelligence provided through benchmarking has enabled Birmingham to move from asking:
"Are our plans improving?"
to asking:
"Which aspects of our plans are improving, and where do we still need to focus our efforts?"
This shift has supported more strategic and evidence-driven decision-making across the service.
For Birmingham, benchmarking has delivered several important benefits:
• Improved strategic oversight of EHCP quality trends.
• Stronger reporting for senior leaders, managers and partners.
• Clear identification of priority improvement areas.
• More targeted and effective training programmes.
• Better understanding of whether local trends reflect wider national patterns.
Birmingham's improvement journey was recognised during its 2025 Ofsted and CQC SEND inspection, which noted:
"The quality and effectiveness of children and young people's education, health and care (EHC) plans in Birmingham is improving."
While several elements contributed to this improvement journey, benchmarking has played a significant role in the progress made, offering robust evidence, measurable outcomes, and clear direction for improvement activity.
What they learned from benchmarking is that benchmarking should not just be used as a separate report, but it should be built into the governance, strategic planning, decision making and targeted training to drive meaningful improvements.
