Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will carry out jointly, an inspection of your local area. The Children and Families Act 2014 places duties on the local health, social care and education services that provide for children and young people with SEND (Special educational needs and disabilities). The inspection will evaluate how effectively the local area:

• identifies the needs of children and young people with SEND
• meets the needs of these children and young people so that their outcomes and chances of participating fully in society improve.

The views of children and young people with SEND, and the views of their parents and carers will be gathered during visits to a number of early years settings, schools, colleges and specialist services. These views are critical to the inspection process. During the inspection, Ofsted and CQC inspectors will be keen to speak to as many children and young people and their parents and carers as possible.

How local children, young people, parents and carers contribute their views during this local area inspection

There are several ways in which children, young people, parents and carers from your provision can engage with the inspection process and contribute their views.

The inspection will include a survey of parents and carers. The survey will be open from noon on Monday 21 June 2021 until 11:59pm on Tuesday 29 June 2021.

Parents and carers can email their contributions to Lasend.support@ofsted.gov.uk.

Details about the local area SEND inspection will be available on our website and distributed through our Clinical Commissioning Group/s (CCGs). Information about how children and young people with SEND can share their views about our effectiveness should be included in the local offer.

During this inspection, the inspectors will collect information about children and young people in the area. They will be looking at local area records, speaking to area officers and leaders at educational settings, and speaking to children, young people and parents or carers. No names will be recorded, but some of the information collected may be capable of identifying a particular child, young person or adult. Ofsted and CQC will use this information to prepare their report, and for the purposes set out in their privacy notices. No information will be published that identifies any individual in the inspection report.

More information is available in the Ofsted privacy notice and CQC privacy notice.

Ofsted’s Data Protection Officer is the Director, Digital and Information, who may be contacted at informationrequest@ofsted.gov.uk. CQC’s Data Protection Officer is the Head of Governance and Legal Services, who may be contacted at information.access@cqc.org.uk

While we understand that many parents and carers may have views on their experiences that extend back several years, the focus of the inspection is on the effectiveness of the local area since the introduction of reforms in September 2014.

We would also like parents and carers to understand that we will not be able to follow up or comment upon individual cases. The inspection team will consider all communications from parents as part of the evidence when evaluating the effectiveness of the local area.

Information on local area duties toward children and young people with SEND can be found on the Department for Education’s website.