Nottinghamshire County Council “cannot rest” in its improvements to its special educational needs service, says education official

A Nottinghamshire education official has said the county council “cannot rest” in its improvements to its special educational needs service.

The improvements were highlighted in a report discussed by Nottinghamshire County Council’s children’s and families select committee in a meeting on Monday (October 13) updating the progress in improving the experiences and outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the county.

Back in early 2023, education and health watchdogs Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out a local area inspection of the Nottinghamshire SEND partnership and concluded there were “widespread” and/or systemic failings and “significant concerns” for the experiences and outcomes of young people with SEND.

From this, two priority action areas were found focusing on the needs of young people with SEND, such as assessments, quick issuing of Education, Health, and Care Plans (EHCPs), and addressing delays and gaps in young people’s access to some health services. An improvement plan was also launched.

EHCPs are legal documents detailing a young person’s needs, the support they require and the progress they want to make — the target issuing time for one is 20 weeks after assessment.

A monitoring inspection report dated September 2025 — from Ofsted’s and the CQC’s July 2025 monitoring visit — found that “effective action” has been taken on these two areas since the worrying 2023 report.

At the time of the visit, 47.3% of EHCPs were completed within the 20-week statutory timescale, compared to 28% in 2023 and just 4.5% of new EHCPs issued within 20 weeks during 2022.

This marked improvement to the issuing of plans has been driven by changes within the structures of parts of the service and recruiting and retaining more educational psychologists.

Other improvements include better use and access of data to have better overall understanding of young people’s needs and commissioning priorities, support sessions and workshops within communities for those waiting for assessments, a monthly newsletter outlining current assessment wait times and better signposting.

Speaking during the meeting, Peter McConnochie, director of education and inclusion at the council, said new EHCPs issued are now of “better quality”, adding: “There’s still variable quality in EHCPs. There’s still a variable level of information from social care, from health, from education in those plans but those that are newer are much stronger.

“Progress has been made, it’s effective, the actions being taken are effective and we have confidence in that, but we cannot stop, we cannot rest.”

Local authorities across the country have been dealing with increased pressure in their SEND services. In Nottinghamshire county, the level of demand for EHCP assessments is 25% higher in 2025 than in 2023.

The amount of EHCPs the council maintains “continues to increase”, rising 54% in 18 months, from 3,741 in December 2023 to 5,744 at the end of June 2025.

Despite increasing service pressure, the amount of EHCPs issued within timescale overall in 2025 is 44.4%.

Nigel Frith, director of education in the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, said despite these improvements “frustration levels are still very high” across schools.

He said “a number of head teachers” are still finding there are children in their schools who they “do not believe” are placed in the correct setting, meaning needs are not being met and resources are being “drained”.

Keith Girling spoke of the “battle” in ensuring young people with SEND are able to physically travel to SEND educational settings, such as the new specialist Horizons Academy in Mansfield, due to open in spring 2026 with a capacity of 160 pupils aged seven-to-19.

He said: “We’ve got to make sure when we look at the budget coming forward we look at it whole… that transport is linked with the school. It’s got to be, because if it’s not then we’ll have a really nice school with nobody in it.”

Mr McConnochie responded to these concerns saying: “[The council] provides a hefty proportion of its budget around funding to local groups of schools to work as locally as they can but we know schools are struggling and we know that’s an issue the government is looking at.

“If there is a message to send to government it probably relates to our schools are part of a system and we talk about improving mainstream schools, but we can only have inclusive mainstream schools if they’re resourced and supported and trained adequately to meet the needs of the local population.”

Teresa Cullen asked what “forward planning” was in place ahead of the incoming re-shaping of Nottinghamshire councils which will see the two-tier council system in Nottinghamshire abolished to create fewer authorities by 2028.

Mr McConnochie responded the authority is assessing its data on SEND in relation to the different re-shaping options, adding: “At this point in time, we’ve got the preferred option put forward by Nottinghamshire County Council but we wait to see how that will play out.”