Oxfordshire SEND local offer

Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) improvement

Our local area partnership work to improve services

The local area partnership

The local area partnership is made up of:

  • Oxfordshire County Council 
  • NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (BOB ICB) 
  • Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
  • Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH)
  • Oxfordshire Parent Carer Forum (OxPCF), the official body for the voice of parent carers. 

Oxfordshire County Council and BOB ICB are jointly responsible for the planning and commissioning of services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Oxfordshire. 

The local area partnership SEND inspection

In July 2023, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission inspected services for children and young people with SEND provided by Oxfordshire’s local area partnership. 

The inspection formed part of a new national framework of inspections for children and young people with SEND introduced in 2023. Inspectors identified widespread systemic failings across the local area partnership, leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which must be urgently addressed. 

Read the partnership’s response in its news story. 

As part of the inspection process, on 16 November 2023, the Department for Education published an improvement notice, which was issued to the county council. This is an official document sent to councils following inspections that have similar outcomes, outlining the steps needed to evidence progress in improving services.

The SEND Strategic Improvement and Assurance Board

An Oxfordshire SEND Strategic Improvement and Assurance Board was established to drive the action required to deliver better services for SEND children, young people and their families. 

The board is made up of senior leaders from across the partnership and members of the parent carer forum (PCF). Steve Crocker is the board’s independent chair.  

Members of the SEND Strategic Improvement and Assurance Board

Independent Chair 

  • Steve Crocker

Oxfordshire County Council

  • Chief Executive, Martin Reeves
  • Cabinet Member, SEND Improvement Cllr Kate Gregory
  • Cabinet Member, Children, Education and Young
  • People's Services, Cllr John Howson
  • Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Cllr Ian Corkin
  • Executive Director People, Transformation and Performance, Stephen Chandler
  • Director of Children's Services, Lisa Lyons
  • Director for Public Health, Ansaf Azhar
  • SENDIASS Manager, Wendy Cliffe

NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board

  • Chief Executive, Dr Nick Broughton
  • Chief Nursing Officer, Rachael Corser
  • Director of Vulnerable People's Services, Niki Cartwright
  • Place Director, Oxfordshire Daniel Leveson

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust

  • Chief Executive Officer, Grant Macdonald (Interim)

Oxford Universities Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • Director of Regulatory Compliance and Assurance, Clare Winch

Oxfordshire Parent Carers Forum

  • OxPCF Co-Chair (or a representative from the steering group), Jules Francis-Sinclair

Representative voice of education across Oxfordshire

  • CEO, Acer Trust Nathan Thomas
  • Joint Headteacher, Frank Wise Special School Simon Knight
  • Headteacher, Windale Primary School Katie Geran-Haq

Observers

  • Department for Education (DfE)
  • DfE representative from the south-east vulnerable children's unit
  • Red Kite Solutions (SEN) Ltd
  • Independent SEND advisor, Mark McCurrie
  • NHS England
  • NHS England advisor, David Keavney-Sheath

Steve was the former Director of Children’s Services at Hampshire County Council and was a former President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. 

By reading Steve’s blogs you can keep up with the main discussion points and any actions or decisions agreed upon at each board meeting:

Plans to improve services

The priority action plan

On 12 December 2023, Ofsted approved the partnership’s priority action plan (pdf format, 827 KB). The plan sets out what will be achieved across five priority action areas. 

  1. Gathering and acting on the views of children and young with SEND and their families.
  2. Developing effective communications systems across the partnership to ensure coordinated approaches.
  3. Improved timeliness and quality assurance of education, health and care plans.
  4. Commissioning of services to meet the needs of children and young people and their families.
  5. Producing plans that are coproduced with children and young people and their families, which are rigorously monitored.

Find out more about what the plan means in practice

Video transcript

Lisa Lyons, Director of Children’s Services

I know that there is work to be done and improvements made.

We have developed a significant improvement plan.

Our aim to get to children and their families the right help at the right time.

It can prevent issues for them increasing. It can assist with anxiety and it can help children succeed and that’s why it’s so important to listen. Not only to parents and carers but to children and young people.

Mel Carruthers, SENDCO

SENDCOs have to be more proactive and find different initiatives and find different ways of meeting the needs of children. But the most exciting thing is when you do that and the reward for that is just amazing. 

It is busy, it can be challenging but there is increasing support available. And schools are working really hard to be completely inclusive, 

Tracey Holme, SENDCO

All children being included in all areas of the curriculum as a primary school SENDCO that’s really important. 

I think as a SENDCO, partnership is important. You can feel very much like an island because you are the only person in your school that’s doing that role. So partnership as a SENDCO is very important with the external agencies and with county.

I think county has got a lot better with communicating with SENDCOs. There are new initiatives that have been coming out over the last couple of years.

Deb Smit, Head of SEND

We are committed to improving outcomes for children and young people. Part of understanding that is to listen to the views of children and young people and their families and act on those view.

We really nee dot understand the lived experience of children, young people and their families so that we can improve our services and improve their experience.

We’re in a period of reviewing resetting and then rebuilding to make sure that we have high quality services right across the system that are consistently delivered to improve outcomes for children and young people.

We’re on a journey of change in Oxfordshire and that can take some time. We can only do this if we do it together.

Transformation roadmap

The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) roadmap is a high-level overview of the key milestones and activities for the local area partnership’s SEND transformation programme. It covers improvement activity from January 2024 to April 2025.

To support this roadmap, a glossary of terms and a guide to SEND processes and pathways (routes to get the right support) are being developed.

Improving the experience of parent carers

We work in close partnership with the Oxfordshire Parent Carer Forum to improve the experience of parent carers. The Better Together report summarises the key findings from the Better Together event held in March 2023 for parent carers. That focused on what needed to change to improve the experience of parents and carers and that of the children and young people they care for.