SEND Ofsted and CQC inspections
Last updated: 27 March 2025
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) conduct joint inspections to judge the effectiveness of local areas in implementing the disability and special educational needs reforms as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.
Our improvement plan for 2023 to 2024
In March 2023, we received a letter from Claire Coutinho MP, Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, informing us of her decision to issue an Improvement Notice. It also set out the requirement for KCC and NHS Kent and Medway to develop a rapid improvement plan, called an Accelerated Improvement Plan which we published in August 2023.
The plan is overseen by the Department for Education and NHS England who conducted their first progress monitoring visit in November 2023 with representatives from KCC, NHS Kent and Medway, schools, and parents. They found that Kent is making progress in all areas. Read their progress monitoring visit letter (PDF, 173.8 KB).
Find out more about our Accelerated Progress Plan and outcomes of progress monitoring visits.
2022 Ofsted and CQC re-visit
Ofsted and the CQC conducted a re-visit to Kent in September 2022 to assess whether the local area (KCC, NHS Kent and Medway, and local schools and settings) had made progress in addressing the areas of significant weakness identified in their inspection of the local area in 2019.
Following the 2022 Ofsted and CQC re-visit in September, their findings were published in November 2022:
- the Ofsted letter
- our open letter to parents and carers (PDF, 111.7 KB)
- our media release
- our letter to schools and settings (PDF, 80.2 KB).
2019 Ofsted and CQC inspection
The inspection identified nine areas of significant weakness in SEND provision in Kent. These were set out in a letter which was published on the Ofsted website on 29 March 2019.
- Written Statement of Action (PDF, 509.0 KB)
- Written Statement of Action - plan on a page (PDF, 105.3 KB)
- Written Statement of Action - response letter (PDF, 119.0 KB)
- Written Statement of Action - measures and indicators report (XLSX, 60.6 KB)
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