SUFFICIENT progress has been made by a previously poorly performing section of Thurrock Council's children's services that inspections and monitoring by the government watchdogs OFSTED and the Care Quality Commission can be scaled down.

That's the verdict of latest inspections that was announced today (Thursday, 10 February) which says the authority's Special Educational Needs (SEND) services have made "sufficient progress" and improvements across a number of key areas.

Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited Thurrock from 13 to 15 December 2021 to assess the levels of progress made by the council in addressing areas identified as needing focus and development, highlighted through a joint local area SEND Ofsted inspection report in April 2019.

The initial visit damned aspects of the service, highlighting the following failings:

Inaccurate and incomplete records, and ineffective oversight mean that leaders did not know the whereabouts of some children and young people and what provision they have.

Quality assurance is not rigorous enough to ensure effective governance and oversight across the provision and services for 0 to 25- year-olds with SEND. Leaders are reliant on working relationships rather than processes. Leaders are over reliant on the limited information given to them by educational providers about the quality of the provision that they purchase.

EHC plans (a legal document that describe a child or young person's special educational, health and social care needs) and the annual review process are of poor quality. The local authority has no system in place to make sure that relevant professionals and services are notified when EHC plans need reviewing or updating. Professionals are not routinely informed of requests to submit written information within specified timescales. Too often, EHC plans are out of date and do not accurately reflect the needs or views of children and young people, or the views of their families. The information from EHC plans and annual reviews is not used to inform the commissioning of services, particularly, but not exclusively, for young people between the ages of 19 and 25 years.

The latest report found sufficient improvements on how the council stores accurate records and provides oversight of the provision for children and young people, the rigorous quality assurance for services provided to 0 to 25 year olds with SEND, and the quality and reviewing of EHC plans.

It concludes: "As the area has made sufficient progress in addressing all the significant weaknesses, the formal quarterly support and challenge visits from the DfE and NHS England will cease."

Cabinet member for children's services Cllr Barry Johnson has celebrated today's news, describing it as 'tremendous'.

He says: "The report is a tremendous result for Children's Services and reflects the high levels of support and care we provide for vulnerable children and young people within our community.

"The report confirms that our SEND team has made great strides in addressing the three areas of significant weakness that were previously reported in 2019.

"The new processes that we have rigorously implemented throughout the service have been recognised and we are confident that they put us on a strong path for the future.

"The next step for us as an organisation is to take this feedback and learning on board, and consider how we will use it to make our SEND offer the most caring and intuitive it can be. This includes providing more services to children locally, preventing them travelling outside of Thurrock, sometimes in placements costing in excess of £20k a week.

"Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this valued and most crucial service as we work to deliver the best SEND support for our children and young people in Thurrock."

Anthony McKeever, Chief Executive Officer Designate for the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board, said: "We are really pleased with the positive results of the SEND revisit which has highlighted the sufficient progress made for children and young people who have SEND in Thurrock.

"This is a great example of strong partnership working in Thurrock with education, health and social care coming together and working with our children, young people and families as well as the Parent and Carer Forum. We will continue to build on these foundations to ensure that all children in Thurrock get the best possible start in life."

The full report is available to view online via this link.