In May, the inspection team released a report which outlined their findings. You can see the full report on the Ofsted website.  

They identified a number of areas of strength in SEND practice in Milton Keynes including: 

• Ambitious leaders who know the area well and lead with a strong moral imperative 
• A local commitment to early identification and intervention 
• Active engagement with families and effective examples of co-production 
• A broad and deep commitment to inclusion in our local schools, well supported by the local authority 
• Suitable support for children unable to attend school and moving into the area 
• Timely assessments and intervention from occupational therapy and physiotherapy, and effective speech and language therapy services for the early years 
• Helpful support from mental health services through the ‘Single Point of Access’ . 

The overall outcome of the inspection was identified as ‘The local area partnership’s arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)’. 

Alongside the areas of strength, the report identified 5 areas for improvement. These are: 

Strategic use of data 

The local area partnership needs to strengthen its strategic evaluation and oversight for children and young people with SEND. This includes the strategic use of data to understand children and young people’s needs and how this will inform the partnership’s work in the future. 

Multi-agency working to support identification, assessment & meeting need

The local area partnership should strengthen multi-agency working between education, health and social care. This is to ensure that children and young people’s needs are identified, assessed and met in a more efficient and timely manner. 

Gaps and delays in some health services

Health leaders should further address gaps and delays in some health services to improve early identification and support for children and young people with SEND. This includes the Healthy Child Programme, mental health and speech and language therapy (SALT). 

Quality and value of EHC plans

The local area partnership should improve the quality of EHC plans so that they are fully valued by all agencies to better drive the provision offered by practitioners across education, health and care. 

Coproduction and voice of children, young people and families

The local area partnership should ensure that the voice of children and young people and families is central to the EHC planning process, through improved co production to more widely influence the work of the partnership. 

After an inspection report is published, Ofsted and the CQC require that the local area partnership updates their strategic plan based on the recommendations set out in the report. 

In response to their findings, and in line with statutory guidance, the partnership has been meeting over the last 6 weeks to review our strategic plan and to ensure that we are specifically addressing the 5 recommendations identified in the inspection report. 

This has included: 

• Looking at the work of our 5 strategy workstreams and mapping which projects fit with the areas for improvement 
• Discussing ideas for how to improve in these areas with PACA MK (the parent carer forum representing parents in Milton Keynes) and with school leaders.  
• Considering how we will know that we have made improvements and what we will measure to be assured that things are improving. 

We have now completed the action plan which outlines the work that our partnership will do over the coming years to respond to the 5 areas for improvement, and how this fits with other strategic work that we are doing to improve services for children and young people with SEND in Milton Keynes. 

You can see the plan here. Progress updates will be shared on the local offer every six months, with the first one expected in January 2025.