Kent’s SEND Services: From Nine Identified Weaknesses to Lifted Improvement Notice

Nine Weaknesses, Five Years of Scrutiny

Nine. That was the number of significant weaknesses Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission found when they inspected Kent’s special educational needs and disabilities services back in 2019. Not one or two things that needed tidying up — nine distinct areas where the system was falling short for some of the county’s most vulnerable children and young people. It set in motion a multi-year oversight process that, in various forms, is still running today.

The joint inspection assessed how well education, health and care services across the Kent local area were meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND. And the scope was broad — not just Kent County Council in isolation, but the wider local system, taking in NHS Kent and Medway and schools and settings right across the county.

Government Steps In

A re-visit in 2022, with findings published that November, found some progress against the original concerns. But not enough.

On 31 March 2023, the Department for Education issued Kent County Council with a formal Improvement Notice — a blunt signal that central government had run out of patience with the pace of local change, and that it no longer had confidence progress was happening fast enough.

Kent County Council and NHS Kent and Medway responded by publishing an Accelerated Improvement Plan in August 2023. A monitoring visit the following November found Kent making progress across all areas covered by the notice. By that point, the picture — according to the council — was one of measurable forward movement across education, health and care partners.

The Notice Is Lifted

On 6 August 2024, the Department for Education lifted the Improvement Notice. Kent’s formal exit from government intervention. Though it doesn’t mean the job’s done.

The council’s own SEND page was last updated on 27 March 2025, which rather suggests the authority is treating this as an ongoing public responsibility rather than a box ticked and filed away. And Ofsted and the CQC retain their role as independent scrutineers of whether local areas are genuinely meeting their SEND duties — for children and young people from birth to 25. They can come back. They will, if they judge it necessary.

What the Timeline Tells Us

The sequence here matters. From the 2019 inspection to the lifted notice in August 2024, Kent’s SEND system spent five years under some form of formal scrutiny or intervention. As recently as March 2023, the government’s own position was that progress had been insufficient. The shift to a lifted notice fifteen months later reflects a hefty change in that assessment — though how much of that shift is felt on the ground is another question entirely.

The council points to the Accelerated Improvement Plan and subsequent monitoring visits as driving the turnaround. But families who’ve navigated this system during the past five years will have their own views on what changed. And what hasn’t.

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Key Takeaways

• Ofsted and the CQC identified nine areas of significant weakness in Kent’s SEND services during the 2019 inspection
• The Department for Education issued a formal Improvement Notice on 31 March 2023, citing insufficient progress; it was lifted on 6 August 2024
• Kent County Council and NHS Kent and Medway published an Accelerated Improvement Plan in August 2023, with a November 2023 monitoring visit finding progress across all areas

What This Means for Kent Residents

Families across Kent who rely on education, health and care support for children and young people with SEND have lived through a prolonged and, frankly, worrying period of formal concern about local services. The lifting of the Improvement Notice in August 2024 suggests the system has moved from active government intervention toward a monitored recovery phase — but the council’s page remaining live and updated into 2025 indicates nobody’s calling this resolved just yet. Parents and carers seeking assessments, support plans, or joined-up care across council and NHS services should know that oversight of the local SEND system remains ongoing, and that both Ofsted and the CQC can return to inspect at any point.