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Recent Area SEND inspections conducted throughout 2024 have exposed systemic weaknesses in EHCP quality and delivery across England
Education, Health and Care Plan provision is under intense scrutiny, and recent inspection findings from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission paint a concerning picture. For SEND professionals working across local authorities, schools, and health services, these findings represent both a challenge and an opportunity to fundamentally improve how we support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Recent Area SEND inspections conducted throughout 2024 have exposed systemic weaknesses in EHCP quality and delivery across England. Analysis of inspection outcomes reveals that the most pressing issues requiring priority action consistently centre around strategic failures rather than frontline delivery problems.
In 2023 and 2024, the most common aspects of SEND services that inspectors deemed needed priority action were strategic things: Leadership strategies and disjointed multi-agency approaches between education, health and social care*. This pattern indicates that while individual practitioners may be working hard, the systems collaborative approach is missing.
One particularly concerning trend highlighted by inspectors relates to statutory compliance. "Too many education, health and care needs assessments are not completed within the statutory timescales,"* was a finding from West Sussex's recent inspection, reflecting a widespread issue affecting multiple local areas across the country.
The implications extend beyond mere compliance failures. When EHCPs are delayed, incomplete, or of poor quality, the direct impact falls on children and families who depend on these plans for accessing appropriate education, health, and social care support. The ripple effects include increased parental anxiety, educational disruption, and missed opportunities for early intervention.
The inspection evidence points to several recurring quality issues that SEND professionals must address urgently. These problems are not isolated incidents but represent systemic challenges that require coordinated responses across partnerships.
Statutory timescales for EHCP completion remain a persistent challenge across multiple local areas. The 20-week deadline from initial request to final plan is being missed regularly, with some areas showing significant backlogs. This isn't simply about administrative efficiency – delayed assessments mean children wait longer for support, potentially leading to secondary mental health issues, family breakdown, and educational regression.
Inspection findings consistently highlight weaknesses in meaningful co-production with families. Parent carers made suggestions on how to make improvements through better communication and transparency*; and explored how an online system could help to track the EHCP process. The fact that this emerged from recent co-production workshops in Worcestershire following their 2024 inspection demonstrates that families are ready to engage constructively when given genuine opportunities to influence process improvements.
The strategic failures identified by inspectors often stem from poor joint working between education, health, and social care partners. This manifests in EHCPs that lack coherent outcomes, contain conflicting information between sections, or fail to adequately describe how different services will work together to support the child or young person.
Beyond procedural issues, inspectors are finding that many EHCPs lack the specificity and clarity needed to drive effective provision. Plans may contain vague outcomes, generic provision descriptions, or fail to adequately reflect the voice and aspirations of the child or young person and their family.
The current Area SEND inspection framework focuses on three key questions that directly impact EHCP quality:
Understanding these inspection priorities helps SEND professionals focus improvement efforts where they will have maximum impact. The emphasis on leadership effectiveness and partnership working reflects the reality that EHCP quality cannot be improved through individual effort alone – it requires systemic change supported by strong governance and clear accountability structures.
One of the most promising developments in addressing EHCP quality challenges is the emergence of sophisticated digital quality assurance systems. These platforms offer unprecedented visibility into EHCP processes and outcomes, enabling local areas to move from reactive problem-solving to proactive quality management.
Modern digital quality assurance modules can track EHCP quality across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Rather than discovering problems during annual audits or inspection visits, these systems provide continuous monitoring of key quality indicators including:
The power of digital quality assurance lies not just in identifying problems but in tracking improvement over time. These systems can demonstrate the exact state of EHCP quality at any given moment and show measurable progress following targeted improvements. This capability is invaluable for evidencing improvement to inspectors and, more importantly, for ensuring that changes are making a difference to children and families.
Based on inspection findings and emerging best practice, SEND professionals should consider implementing the following strategic improvements:
Utilise existing digital quality assurance solutions which provide explicit quality criteria for each section of EHCPs, ensuring all staff understand what constitutes good quality content aligned with national good practice guidance.
Move beyond random sampling to comprehensive quality monitoring. Digital platforms can assess EHCPs against quality criteria, providing managers with complete visibility of performance rather than extrapolated estimates from small samples.
Create formal protocols for multi-agency working that specify roles, responsibilities, and timescales for each partner. Regular partnership meetings should review both individual cases and systemic issues, with clear escalation procedures when problems arise.
Quality EHCPs require skilled professionals who understand both legal requirements and best practice in EHCP writing. Comprehensive training and development on targeted areas highlighted in quality assurance will improve quality of plans.
Move beyond consultation to genuine co-production by involving families in service design, quality assurance processes, and improvement planning. Their insights are invaluable for identifying problems and solutions that professionals might miss.
The inspection findings represent a call to action for the SEND sector. While the challenges are significant, the solutions are increasingly clear. Local areas that embrace digital transformation, prioritise quality assurance, and genuinely engage families as partners are beginning to demonstrate that high-quality, timely EHCPs are achievable at scale.
For SEND professionals facing their own inspection journey, the message is clear: start now, use data to drive improvement and demonstrate improvement journeys, and never lose sight of the children and families you serve. The tools and knowledge exist to transform EHCP quality – what's needed is the collective will to use them.
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