Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 15 November to Question 1392 on Special Educational Needs: Hertfordshire, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of appointing a Children's Services Commissioner to assist Hertfordshire County Council to deliver their statutory responsibilities to (a) SEND children and (b) their families.

When an inspection report identifies a local area that has widespread and/or systemic failings, the department’s response follows a tiered intervention model based on a robust assessment of need in that local area. I will consider issuing an improvement notice to the local authority unless there is compelling and strong evidence not to. This is to make sure that they improve their services quickly and effectively.

The department is meeting local leaders in Hertfordshire in early December to scrutinise their plans for rapid improvement and the local area partnership is required to submit a detailed priority action plan to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission by 19 December 2023. To ensure independent and expert oversight of delivery of this plan, the partnership has appointed Dame Christine Lenehan as the new chair of the partnership’s multi-agency improvement board. The department will monitor progress every three months against the Priority Action Plan and Ofsted will visit after 18 months for formal monitoring. If there is persistent or whole service failure, the department will consider a range of further interventions to bring about fast improvement. These include issuing a statutory direction and appointing a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities commissioner.