Official Statistics

Main findings: area SEND inspections and outcomes in England as at 31 December 2024

Published 26 June 2025

Applies to England

This is the main findings report for the area special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) inspections and outcomes in England 2025 release. The following are also available:

• underlying data

• methodology

• pre-release access list

Summary

This release contains:

• outcomes of area SEND inspections carried out between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024

• outcomes for all area SEND inspections carried out under the current framework (between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024)

Main findings

In January 2023, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) began carrying out joint inspections of local services for children and young people with SEND under the new inspection framework. This framework anticipates inspecting all local areas by 2027/28.

Since January 2023, we have carried out 54 full inspections in local areas across England, with 28 taking place in 2024. In 14 of these inspections (7 in 2024), we found that the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically led to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. In 26 inspections (15 in 2024), we found that arrangements led to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. In the remaining 14 inspections (6 in 2024), we concluded that there were widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns.

Introduction

Ofsted and the CQC carry out joint inspections of local areas at the request of the Secretary of State for Education under section 20(1)(a) of the Children Act 2004.^{[footnote 1]} More details on current and previous frameworks can be found in the accompanying methodology document.

There are 3 possible full inspection outcomes, leading to different subsequent inspection activity:

• The local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership is taking action where improvements are needed.
• The local area partnership’s arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership must work jointly to make improvements.
• There are widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which the local area partnership must address urgently.

In this publication, we occasionally summarise these inspection outcomes for ease of presentation.

Inspections evaluate arrangements for all children and young people with SEND aged 0 to 25 covered by the SEND code of practice, including those who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan and those who receive special educational needs (SEN) support.

In January 2024, there were 576,000 children and young people aged up to 25 with an EHC plan. There were additionally over 1.2 million pupils receiving SEN support in school. Overall, 18.4% of children and young people in school are designated as having SEND.^{[footnote 1]}

This publication includes all area SEND inspections completed during 2024. Reports for these inspections have all been published.

Inspections between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024

During the 2024 calendar year, we carried out 28 full inspections in local areas across England.

In 7 inspections, we found that the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically led to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership was taking action to make improvements where these were needed.

In 15 inspections, we found that the local area partnership’s arrangements led to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The organisations making up the local area partnership needed to work together to make improvements.

In the remaining 6 inspections, we concluded that there were widespread and/or systemic failings that led to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which the local area partnership needed to address urgently. These local area partnerships had to prepare and submit a priority area SEND action plan to His Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) addressing the areas for priority action that we identified.

Figure 1: Inspection outcomes for inspections carried out in 2024

^{Note: Number of local areas in brackets.
View data in an accessible table format.}

Inspections between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024

Since we introduced the area SEND framework, we have carried out 54 full inspections of local areas across England.

In 14 inspections, we found that the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically led to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership was taking action where improvements were needed.

In 26 inspections, we found that the local area partnership’s arrangements led to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The organisations making up the local area partnership needed to work together to make improvements.

In the remaining 14 inspections, we concluded that there were widespread and/or systemic failings that led to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which the local area partnership needed to address urgently. The local area partnerships had to prepare and submit a priority area SEND action plan to HMCI addressing the areas for priority action that we identified.

Figure 2: Inspection outcomes as at 31 December 2024

^{Note: Number of local areas in brackets.
View data in an accessible table format.}

Figure 3: Map showing inspection outcomes by local area as at 31 December 2024

^{Note: The map of England with a close-up of the London region shows the inspection outcomes listed in the inspection data spreadsheet of this publication.
See the last worksheet in the area SEND inspection data spreadsheet.}

Outcomes by Ofsted region

Due to the relatively small number of inspections within each region, regional comparisons should be interpreted with caution. In the East Midlands, 4 out of the 5 inspected areas (80%) have been found to have widespread and/or systemic failings. On the other hand, the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber is the only Ofsted region in which no local areas have so far received this outcome. By contrast, in 4 out of the 9 inspected areas in the region (44%), it has been found that the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically led to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. Comparative analysis will be revisited in future publications as more inspection data becomes available.

Figure 4: Inspection outcomes by Ofsted region as at 31 December 2024

^{Note: Number of local areas in brackets.
View data in an accessible table format.}

Glossary

Definitions of terms are in the statistical glossary.

Further information

Contacts

If you are a member of the public and have any comments or feedback on this publication, please contact Rebecca Vincent on 0333 077 7300 or the social care data and area send analysis team on data.areasend@ofsted.gov.uk.

Press enquiries should be sent to our press team on pressenquiries@ofsted.gov.uk.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jonny Shine for his contributions to this statistical release.

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Annex: data tables for figures

This section contains the underlying data in an accessible table format for all figures.

Data for Figure 1: Inspection outcomes for inspections carried out in 2024

Group	Typically positive experiences and outcomes	Inconsistent experiences and outcomes	Widespread and/or systemic failings	Total
Local areas	7	15	6	28

^{See Figure 1}

Data for Figure 2: Inspection outcomes as at 31 December 2024

Group	Typically positive experiences and outcomes	Inconsistent experiences and outcomes	Widespread and/or systemic failings	Total
Local areas	14	26	14	54

^{See Figure 2}

Data for Figure 4: Inspection outcomes by Ofsted region as at 31 December 2024

Ofsted region	Typically positive experiences and outcomes	Inconsistent experiences and outcomes	Widespread and/or systemic failings	Total
East Midlands	4	0	1	5
East of England	2	1	1	4
London	1	6	3	10
North East, Yorkshire and the Humber	0	5	4	9
North West	4	3	1	8
South East	1	6	1	8
South West	1	2	2	5
West Midlands	1	3	1	5

^{See Figure 4}

1. Figures sourced from Department for Education statistical publications: Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2024 and Special educational needs in England, academic year 2023/24. ↩ ↩²