The Department for Education has announced a programme of revisits to those local areas which were asked to produce a WSoA following their SEND inspections.
The revisits programme is due to start in December 2018 and will run alongside the current programme of local area SEND inspections, which is in place until 2021.
The revisits do not represent a re-inspection of SEN provision. Inspectors from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will only revisit those areas which were asked to produce a WSoA and the focus of the visit will be on the progress made since the original inspection.
Revisits will allow Ofsted and the CQC to assess the progress which local areas have made against each of the actions in their WSoA. They will also provide additional reassurance to families on the progress local services are making, identify where further work is needed, and enable local areas to demonstrate the improvements they have made to SEND services and in delivering better outcomes for children and young people.
Local areas will usually be revisited within 18 months of their WSoA having been accepted as fit for purpose by Ofsted and CQC. The local area will receive 10 days’ notification of the revisit, which will last between 2-4 days, depending on the number of actions in the WSoA. A report will be published on the Ofsted and CQC websites, usually 33 days after the inspectors have finished the revisit. It will set out whether the local area has made sufficient progress against each area of the WSoA.
Where a local area is considered to have made sufficient progress against its WSoA, monitoring visits from the DfE and NHS England will cease. DfE and NHS England will determine on a case by case basis the next steps for any local areas that have made insufficient progress. This may include the Secretary of State using his powers of intervention.
The methodology for the revisits can be found on the Ofsted website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-area-send-inspection-framework and will be included in the local area SEND inspection handbook in spring 2019.