A government commissioner is to take over services for children and young people with special educational needs in Birmingham after inspectors found that significant weaknesses had not been improved.
The Department for Education has intervened after an Ofsted and Care Quality Commission report found that sufficient progress had been made in just one of 13 areas of significant weaknesses identified three years earlier.
It has now appointed John Coughlan to be SEND commissioner for Birmingham and issued a direction on the council to co-operate with him.
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This is the first time the government has appointed a commissioner to run SEND services in response to inspection report failings.
Weaknesses were identified in a follow-up SEND area inspection report, which was carried out jointly by Ofsted and the CQC.
Failings identified by inspectors included pupils not having a school place identified and parents not knowing where to turn for support.
The direction, published by the DfE, says that education secretary Nadhim Zahawi is satisfied that the council is “failing to perform to an adequate standard in some or all of the functions” relating to children with SEND.
It orders the council to comply “with any instructions of the secretary of state or the SEND commissioner in relation to the improvement of the council’s exercise of its SEND functions”.
The council has also been told to produce an accelerated progress plan for the DfE and NHS England, which will be agreed upon next month.
This should set out what improvements will be made over the next three, six and 12 months, the direction says.
The new SEND commissioner is expected to issue instructions to the council to secure immediate improvements in SEND services and to identify ongoing improvements that can be made.
Mr Coughlan, who retired from his role as Hampshire County Council chief executive in May, will chair the Birmingham SEND Improvement Board to “hold SEND system leaders to account”.
SEND inspections finding significant weaknesses
The intervention follows Ofsted and CQC’s follow-up SEND area inspection of Birmingham in May of this year.
An initial inspection in 2018 found that there was a lack of an overarching approach or joined-up strategy for improving provision and outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
The follow-up report said that children and young people with SEND and their families cannot consistently access high-quality provision.
It adds: “At the moment, this is too hit-and-miss. Leaders need a better understanding of what families want to know about services and what they can expect when they are referred to a service.
“Children and young people’s transitions from one school to another, or into employment and training, are not a positive experience for families in Birmingham.
“Poorly planned transitions lead to children not having a school place identified. Families do not know where to go for support.”
Tes has previously revealed that more than half of the first 100 SEND area inspections of local authority areas in England have identified significant weaknesses.
Ofsted and the CQC are currently working on plans for a new SEND area inspection regime.
The first tranche of inspections were only designed for areas to be checked once and for Ofsted and CQC to carry out a return visit to check on the progress being made in areas where weaknesses were identified.
