Lancashire County Council slapped with SEND improvement notice as expected
PLUS: Local government reorganisation spanners and businesses named and shamed
Hello and welcome to The Lancashire Lead.
It has been quite the week, hasn’t it? The announcement of a DOGE-like audit of Lancashire County Council’s spending clearly set some nerves on edge. It was notable that nobody in Reform UK locally rushed to embrace the DOGE phrasing itself.
Then later in the week, the resignation of Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf - taking with him tech entrepreneur Nathaniel Fried who was to lead the DOGE unit - before then re-appearing on Saturday evening to return to the party and in fact lead the DOGE push himself.
Reform UK leader Cllr Stephen Atkinson had already committed to auditing expenditure and waste at Lancashire County Council and, unsurprisingly, the resignations, restorations and revelations at Reform’s national level do not affect his plans.
We’ll have more on what’s going on from a DOGE perspective in our midweek edition of The Lancashire Lead - today we focus on the fallout of an improvement notice being delivered to County Hall regarding SEND provision.
The absence of any Reform UK voice from the response from County Hall was interesting - Nigel Farage has drawn criticism in the past for saying GPs are ‘massively over diagnosing’ children with mental health conditions and special educational needs and disabilities. It’s not the sort of rhetoric to fill parents with confidence.
And for paid subscribers to The Lancashire Lead, we have a report on businesses that have been shamed for failing to pay the minimum wage.
Damning SEND services inspection leads to improvement notice
By Jamie Lopez and Luke Beardsworth
Lancashire County Council has been issued with a formal improvement notice after a damning inspection of its special education needs and disabilities (SEND) services.
The Department for Education (DfE) has issued the formal notice outlining two areas of improvement and three priority actions which must be achieved to address failures within the department.
It follows an inspection in February which found “widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns” about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people in Lancashire with SEND.
The issue was frequently talked about as a major concern before the local elections with the previous Tory administration accused of desperately failing the children it should have been supporting. The improvement notice highlights the scale of the challenge facing the new administration.
The notice orders that leaders from the council and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) work together to:
improve their shared strategic governance, oversight, commissioning, support, challenge and planning of services
“significantly improve” the process, timeliness, quality and oversight of education, health and care (EHC) plans and annual reviews
address the delays and gaps in service provision within the current neurodivergent pathway
improve their communication strategies at all levels, including with children and their families
ensure children with SEND are well prepared for adulthood
In order to enact the changes, the council has been told to have an Improvement Board in place who will be responsible for detailed action plans and will be held accountable for any lack of progress. Officials from the DfE will undertake reviews of progress against the improvement plans at least every six months and more regularly where appropriate.
A target of 12 months has been given to deliver the actions in the improvement plans but the improvement notice will not be removed until the DfE agrees that sufficient progress has been made.
In response, Lancashire County Council sent a press release on Friday (6 June) which said that ‘urgent measures’ are being taken to address the sends of young people with special needs and disabilities.
Those measures include £5 million investment in SEND staffing, £1.8 million from the ICB to improve neurodivergent pathways, a new training programme, additional assessments and 200 new specialist school places from September.
Figures from the NHS, Lancashire SEND Partnership Board, and Lancashire Parent Carer Forum were all quoted but there was no statement from the ruling Reform UK party and The Lancashire Lead’s request for input from the leader was ignored.
Jacqui Old CBE, vice chair of Lancashire SEND Partnership Board and Executive Director for Education and Children's Services, said: “We fully anticipated the Improvement Notice and view it as a vital opportunity to acknowledge the findings of the joint Ofsted and CQC inspection of our SEND services. First and foremost, we want to express our sincere apologies to the children, young people, and families who have been let down.
"As a partnership, we are resolute in our commitment to making meaningful and lasting improvements. I am encouraged by the progress already underway, but we know there is much more to do.
"The challenges we face are not unique to Lancashire. Across the country, there is a significant and growing demand for SEND support and EHC plans. However, this does not lessen our responsibility to act decisively and with urgency.
"The inspection has made it clear: we must rebuild trust, raise expectations, and deliver real, measurable change. That is our focus.
"I want to thank our dedicated staff for their continued hard work and unwavering commitment during this period of transformation. Their efforts are crucial to improving the lives of children and young people across Lancashire.
"We will not rest until every child, parent, and carer experiences a system that is fair, responsive, and truly supportive.”
County Councillor Samara Barnes, who is the Labour shadow cabinet member for education and skills, has frequently spoken of the need to improve SEND provision and said she was pleased to see the action taken.
She told The Lancashire Lead: “We were all extremely disappointed with the findings in the SEND OFSTED report earlier this year that came in under the Tory administration. It was abundantly clear that improvements were necessary so I actually welcome this notice and the clear expectations that it lays out.
“I have spoken to the team at LCC numerous times and I know that they have a clear plan and I support the measures they are taking.
“The improvement board, of which I am a member, will meet for the first time in early July and I am keen that this group ensures that there is a clear, achievable plan for all areas of improvement, that resources are made available to deliver the plan and that proper scrutiny is applied to all of the decisions that are made.
“Personally, I will be keeping a close eye on the commitment to this work from the new Administration, as we are aware that nationally, SEND is not a priority for Reform UK – Farage made this abundantly clear when he stated that doctors were 'massively over-diagnosing conditions like ADHD and Autism’.
“Our children and families deserve this to be done right, done well and done quickly – they have been let down for far too long.”
Tories and Reform UK join forces to scupper plan to redraw Lancashire
By Luke Beardsworth
Lancashire has the best chance of facing its challenges if it does so as a region with a tier three devolution deal.
That is the verdict of one Labour MP in response to a petition delivered to the Reform UK leader of Lancashire County Council pleading for a binding referendum about local government reorganisation plans.
Under current plans mooted by Labour, Lancashire’s political map will be completely rewritten with all existing county and district councils replaced, most likely, by three or four unitary authorities.
This would likely mean neighbouring areas falling under the same council in a way they didn’t previously - which has proved controversial where there are wealth imbalances between areas such as Fylde and Blackpool.
Tim Ashton, county councillor for Lytham & Andsell and Fylde councillor for St John’s ward, this week delivered a petition to Reform UK’s Lancashire County Council leader Stephen Atkinson calling for a binding referendum on local government reorganisation plans.
He said: “I recently delivered my petition against the Blackpool merger to the new Leader of Lancashire County Council. Hundreds of people in Lytham and Ansdell signed it, and the message was loud and clear: we don’t want our council scrapped and merged with Blackpool. That is why I am calling for a binding referendum.
“Reform took control of the council and won the election fair and square, and I respect that. That is why I have called on them to work with me to stop this merger. I have asked the new leader to write to the government and request a legally binding referendum on this issue. We deserve a say.”
Cllr Atkinson has already declared his intention to stage a local referendum on local government reorganisation - his personal belief being that the current status quo does not require reform.
Andrew Snowden, the Conservative MP for Fylde, said: “Labour didn’t even mention this in their manifesto. Now they want to bulldoze local democracy and use Fylde and Wyre to plug their huge budget black holes in Blackpool and Preston, it’s a disaster in the making.”
Labour’s 2024 manifesto did include mention of local government reorganisation, talking of deepening devolution settlements and widening them to new areas. It did not, however, include specifics on abolishing or merging councils - with that decision still in the air. It’s also worth noting that the Local Government Authority described Preston City Council in 2023 as having a relatively strong financial position against a backdrop of many other councils facing severe difficulties.
Chris Webb, MP for Blackpool South, told The Lancashire Lead: “We’ve got a real shot at securing a strong devolution deal – one that puts power and investment where it belongs – in the hands of local people. For too long, we’ve seen areas like Greater Manchester and Merseyside pull ahead, while Lancashire’s been left watching from the sidelines. We can’t let that continue.
“A tier three deal, with an elected mayor, will give us real control over the big issues – transport, housing, skills and public services – and bring billions in new funding. This isn’t about taking anything away from our towns and communities – it’s about delivering better outcomes for all of us.
“Blackpool’s future success is intertwined with the success of the wider region, and vice versa. If we work together, with the right deal, we’ve got the chance to face our challenges head-on and build something better – for all of Lancashire.”
The question of a referendum on local government reorganisation is likely to be contentious - and challenging.
Public engagement around the issue of devolution has long been a challenge for political figures and wide understanding regarding what services are delivered by which tier of government has often been lacking.
But the issue of exactly how a redrawn political Lancashire looks has thrown up numerous challenges over the years and led to slow progress and weak consensus. Fylde and Wyre have repeatedly expressed their desire to not be paired with Blackpool. South Ribble and Chorley prefer to group with West Lancashire rather than Preston. Some figures in West Lancashire would rather join the Liverpool City Region. The Ribble Valley, like Fylde and Wyre, is opposed to merging with its neighbours with starker economic challenges.
School, hotel and brewery among those named by government for failing to pay minimum wage
By Jamie Lopez
Nineteen businesses across Lancashire have been named by the government for failing to pay the minimum wage.
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