Nottinghamshire Local SEND Reform Plan 2026

Annex A: Local SEND Reform Plan

Name of Local Authority: Nottinghamshire County Council

Name of Integrated Care Board: Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board

Local SEND Reform Plan SRO: Dr. Órlaith Green, Director of Education, Learning and Inclusion, Nottinghamshire County Council

Signatories

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Nottinghamshire Supporting Documents

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Nottinghamshire Infographics

Infographic 1: Golden Thread from Strategic Goals to Success Measures Infographic 2: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about Strengthening Inclusion Across Education Settings Infographic 3: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about Experts at Hand Infographic 4: Experts at Hand: Nottinghamshire Approach Infographic 5: Experts at Hand: Multi-Agency Alternative Provision Team Infographic 6: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about Access to Specialist Support and Local Placements Infographic 7: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about System Leadership, Local Partnership Collaboration and Co-Production Infographic 8: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us About Encouraging Inclusive Cultures and Behaviours Infographic 9: How will we deliver this change? Infographic 10: Experts at Hand - Year 1 Costs Infographic 11: Nottinghamshire SEND Governance Structure and Escalation Processes Infographic 12: Shared Governance Across System Partnerships

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Executive Summary

Nottinghamshire’s Local Area SEND Partnership will provide the right support, in the right place, at the right time so that our children and young people in Nottinghamshire can attend, belong, achieve and thrive. Our local SEND Reform Plan aligns closely with local Families First Partnership and Best Start in Life plans, to ensure our children and families receive integrated, local support to meet their needs. Our plan has been co-produced with our local area partnership, and we will provide examples of the views of our children and young people throughout this plan. We have created infographics to illustrate our delivery strategy, to support clear communication of our plans across our local partnership, shared throughout this plan and in appendices. We will continue our SEND improvement activity and deliver reform with a clear focus on earlier help, stronger inclusion and better outcomes for children. We will build a Community of Experts at Hand around our children and young people with SEND to develop the knowledge, expertise and confidence within our system, to meet our children’s needs.

To implement the building blocks of national SEND reform, our local plan is based on five strategic goals:

1. Understand Need and Target Resources 2. Strengthen Inclusive Mainstream Practice 3. Provide Earlier Support Locally 4. Build a Skilled and Sustainable Workforce 5. Strengthen Trust and Accountability We will build on the progress we have made since the January 2023 Ofsted/CQC Local Area SEND inspection. Our Monitoring Visit in July 2025 recognised that we had taken ‘Effective Action’ to address the priority areas, including improving statutory timescales and waiting times, and we are committed to sustaining this progress. The partnership now has stronger governance, clearer accountability, improved statutory SEND arrangements, a more mature relationship with the Parent Carer Forum, and a stronger evidence base through developing data, dashboards and quality assurance.

However, children, young people and families do not yet experience the consistency, timeliness or confidence that we want to secure. Too many children with SEND experience low education attendance, suspension or exclusion, long waits for specialist support or provision, or provision only being available too far from home. Families continue to report delays, communication issues and variable confidence in mainstream provision. Demand for EHC needs assessment, specialist placements and high-cost provision is also increasing, creating significant pressure on the High Needs Block and wider system sustainability. The partnership’s response is not to restrict access to statutory or specialist support, but to improve the quality, consistency and timeliness of support before needs escalate. Over the next three years, we expect to see a more inclusive, consistent and sustainable SEND system. We will measure the success of our plan using 5 key success measures:

1. Our children with SEND are attending education and being included more.

2. More children are accessing specialist support services within mainstream education settings

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3. More children attending specialist provision within or attached to their local mainstream school 4. Our parents and carers have more trust and more positive experiences of our local SEND system 5. School leaders are more confident that our local SEND system can meet our children’s needs earlier The partnership recognises that some outcomes, particularly reductions in statutory demand, specialist placements and high needs expenditure, will take longer to impact. In Year 1 we will focus on mobilisation, quality, communications and infrastructure; in Year 2 we will develop and scale delivery more consistently across localities; and in Year 3 reforms will be embedded as business as usual with stronger evidence of improved inclusion, access and sufficiency of support and provision, and family experience. We have strong foundations for reform, including our Families of Schools practice model, specialist support teams and local partnerships across education, health and care. In Year 1 we will focus on mobilising additional capacity and reforming our foundations to support new ways of working. This will involve implementing Experts at Hand through local Multi-Agency Inclusion teams to strengthen support and confidence in mainstream settings, launching ordinarily available and targeted provision guidance, strengthening decision-making and quality assurance, and completing our co-produced SEND Local Area Partnership Belonging and Inclusion Strategy 2027-2031.

Our plan is ambitious, but it is grounded in the partnership’s existing strengths: committed schools and settings, strong local partnerships and support from elected members, a mature Parent Carer Forum relationship, growing data and quality assurance capability, and a shared commitment across education, health, care and wider partners to improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND. Delivery will be overseen through our Inclusion and SEND Transformation Programme and accountable partnership groups, supported by shared partnership data and a developing child-level data model. This will maintain a clear focus on impact, financial sustainability and value for money, including reduced pressure on specialist demand and better targeting of support, ensuring our services are valuable for all and vital for some.

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Section 1 – Vision and Goals

1. What the local area partnership is trying to achieve? We will provide the right support, in the right place, at the right time so that our children and young people in Nottinghamshire can attend, belong, achieve and thrive. Working with our children, young people, families and partners, we will reform our local SEND system through earlier intervention, stronger inclusion and effective partnership working. Over the next three years, we will deliver five strategic goals: 1. Understand Need and Target Resources • Use shared data and insight to identify need. • Improve consistency and transparency in decision-making. • Direct resources to where they achieve the greatest impact and value for money. 2. Strengthen Inclusive Mainstream Practice • Establish a clear and consistent graduated response. • Increase confidence in meeting needs in local mainstream settings. • Reduce unnecessary escalation to specialist provision. 3. Provide Earlier Support Locally • Improve access to support through locality-based services. • Create easier access to specialist support, intervention and provision in local areas • Strengthen partnership working around children and families. 4. Build a Skilled and Sustainable Workforce • Develop workforce capability across education, health and care. • Embed evidence-informed practice. • Increase and strengthen capacity within specialist support services. 5. Strengthen Trust and Accountability • Embed co-production in decision-making. • Improve family experience and communication. • Strengthen governance, assurance and system leadership. These goals are designed to achieve three partnership-wide outcomes:

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1. More children and young people with SEND attend, belong, achieve and thrive in their local communities. 2. Children and young people receive the right support earlier, with easier access to support and intervention. 3. More needs are met locally through inclusive mainstream provision, reducing reliance on specialist, alternative provision and out-of-area placements. We will measure the outcomes using 5 key success measures:

1. Our children with SEND are attending education and being included more.

2. More children are accessing specialist support services within mainstream education settings 3. More children attending specialist provision within or attached to their local mainstream school 4. Our parents and carers have more trust and more positive experiences of our local SEND system 5. School leaders are more confident that our local SEND system can meet our children’s needs earlier For clarity, the infographic below illustrates the golden thread from our strategic goals to success measures, linking to the national Building Blocks of SEND reform. Supporting documentation: Nottinghamshire’s Local Area SEND Strategy 2024-27

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Infographic 1: Golden Thread from Strategic Goals to Success Measures

The following infographic shows how our five strategic goals connect to our three partnership outcomes, how these are delivered through the building blocks, and how progress will be measured through our five success measures.

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Section 2 – Strategy

2. Where the local area partnership expects to be in the next 3 years Our strategy is grounded in a clear three-year future state, stronger operational delivery and measurable impact. In this section, we will present our strategy for each Building Block of Reform

1. Strengthening Inclusion Across Education Settings

1a) Experts at Hand 2. Access to specialist support and local placements 3. System leadership, local partnership collaboration and co-production 4. Encouraging inclusive culture and behaviours Across each Building Block we have assessed our current position against the SEND Reform core minimum requirements, identified the gap between current practice and our intended future state, and designed delivery activity to bridge that gap over the next three years. For each Building Block we will present:

1. What our children, young people and families have told us during co-production 2. Our narrative local blueprint for the next 3 years 3. Any further illustration using infographics We will then present summary tables for our Key Enablers and Success Measures.

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Building Block 1 – Strengthening Inclusion Across Education Settings

Infographic 2: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about Strengthening Inclusion Across Education Settings

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

Where we are Where we will be in the next 3 years

We have strong foundations in place to support inclusion across education settings. Our mainstream schools work together in Families of Schools and School Behaviour and Attendance Partnerships to share resources and staff training, to get support from multi-agency professionals including EPs and specialist teachers and to allocate devolved high needs funding to children as early as possible. These structures are supported by a network of Family SENCOs, Partnership Leads and District SENCOs providing layers of support to school leaders and SENCOs. These education professionals work in District Inclusive Practice Teams to monitor, celebrate and promote inclusive practice in each local area. These new teams are also linking with social care and youth service colleagues to build a multi-agency approach at a district Level.

Over the next three years, we will build an education system that is more confident, consistent and inclusive. Children and young people will receive support earlier and more locally because schools and settings will have a clearer shared understanding of ordinarily available provision, stronger access to specialist advice and more consistent decision-making across the system.

The Experts at Hand model will be a key part of this future state. It will add capacity to our existing locality arrangements by providing clear access routes to multi-agency support, including educational psychology, specialist teaching, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and multidisciplinary assistant roles. Support will include whole-setting development, staff consultation, targeted interventions, AP outreach, special school outreach, early language support and system leadership across priority areas of need, including speech and language, autism, and social, emotional and mental health needs. This will strengthen mainstream practice and reduce the need for escalation into statutory assessment or specialist provision where needs can be met earlier and more effectively.

We are committed to working in partnership with our children and their families. The Parent Carer Forum is a core partner in our local governance structures and now plays an important role in shaping local decisions and shaping practice. For example, our PCF led the roll out of the PINs programme in our local schools.

Variation in practice across schools and localities will reduce through shared provision guidance, clearer levels of need, moderation, workforce development and quality assurance. Decision-making will be fairer, more transparent and more consistent, helping children and families to experience a system that feels easier to understand and navigate. Schools and settings will also have clearer routes to advice and guidance, including stronger system-level contributions from specialist practitioners such as advanced speech and language therapy roles.

However, our system is still too uneven. Our education settings vary too much in their confidence, the support they offer and what families can expect. There are inconsistencies across settings for the support that is normally available to all children as well as the additional targeted support that should be put in place when needed. This means children do not always get the right help early enough at SEN Support level. As a result, pressure is building across the SEND system, with more requests for EHC assessments, long waits for specialist placements, and continued use of alternative provision and EOTAS. Pressure on school budgets and availability of specialist support services such as educational psychologists and speech and language therapists also create challenges for schools in making the right provision to meet their children’s needs.

Our Multi-Agency Alternative Education Team will provide specialist support through EPs, EP Assistants, SENCOs, Speech and Language Therapists and closer links with Children’s Social Care, Youth Justice, Youth Workers and Family Hubs for our EOTAS children and young people. Where appropriate this will support more children and young people who are educated other than at school to be back in educational settings in their local communities.

As a result, we expect to see more children and young people with SEND attending and belonging in mainstream settings, fewer children requiring specialist placements or EOTAS, reduced pressure on alternative provision, and better use of local resources. This will support improved outcomes for children and young people, stronger family confidence and better value for money across the SEND system.

This will be supported by strong partnership working across education, health and care, as Page 11 of 70

Local blueprint for the next 3 years

We want our children with SEND to attend education more, to experience less suspension and exclusion from schools and to make progress in their learning. We are worried about our children and young people who are out of school or attending less than 50% of the time.

well as meaningful co-production with parents, carers, children and young people. We will use shared data, quality assurance and governance processes to check progress, understand where there is variation, and keep improving the system. Delivery will be tracked against agreed milestones and outcomes through programme governance, with regular performance reporting to ensure accountability and delivery at pace.

Several key enablers are in place but are not yet fully joined up or used consistently enough. We have recently launched our newly formed governance arrangements following the improvements identified during our monitoring inspection. These new strengthened arrangements will support our journey of continuous improvement and implementation of our reforms. Our shared data is developing, and our workforce is committed to our children. However, these need to be strengthened so that decisions are more consistent, transparent and fair. The next steps are to launch our new Ordinarily Available Provision guidance, strengthen SEND assessment and placement decision-making, build workforce confidence and capacity, and use the new SEND and Inclusion strategies to embed change across the whole system, for all children.

Children and families will tell us that they feel included in their local communities and receive the right support at the right time. Mainstream settings will feel more confident in meeting a wide range of needs, with joined-up support in place to help children early and locally without the need for a statutory assessment.

We expect to see less demand for Education, Health and Care Plans, fewer specialist placements, and less reliance on alternative provision and EOTAS. More children will be able to attend a school closer to home, feel that they belong, and achieve positive outcomes, with improved attendance and reduced exclusions across the system. This work will contribute to improved value for money and support the long-term financial sustainability of the High Needs Block.

In the first 12 months we will complete our co-produced Belonging and Inclusion Strategy 2027- 2031 including our updated plans for SEND and Alternative Provision, SEND Place Planning and Communications and Engagement to provide a clear strategic framework for the next phase of reform and embed these changes across the local area partnership.

These changes will be underpinned by phased implementation, accountable governance, joint commissioning, workforce scaling and quality assurance so that progress is monitored against clear milestones, risks are escalated early and delivery remains focused on outcomes, financial sustainability and value for money.

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Building Block 1a) Experts at Hand

Infographic 3: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about Experts at Hand

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

Where we are Where we will be in the next 3 years

We are planning to deliver the Experts at Hand approach together with our Nottingham City SEND Partnership, to avoid duplication, reduce competition for scarce specialist staff, create a more joined-up offer to schools and align with wider NHS commissioning arrangements and system reforms including Local Government Re-organisation. We have held initial meetings with our colleagues in Nottingham City and will develop the model jointly acknowledging that our health partners commission and deliver services across both local authorities, the impending impact of local government re- organisation and that our families access schools and provision across borders. Our proposed plan: Our Experts at Hand model will enhance our existing Family of Schools structure, providing additional capacity across the system to enable earlier access to specialist support at SEN Support level. We will create Multi-Agency Inclusion Teams where every Family of Schools has a link Educational Psychologist (EP), Specialist Teaching Team, Speech and Language Therapist and support from Sensory Services including Occupational Therapy. Within the context of a national shortage of EPs, we have delivered a successful grow-your-own programme to expand our EP Service by 55% within 3 years. We achieved this by appointing assistant psychologists and supporting them through their training towards ultimate employment with us. We plan to build on this model to support our Experts at Hand Approach. Schools and settings will access this support through Families of Schools and SENCO networks, enabling consistent access to multi-agency advice, whole-setting support and targeted interventions without requiring escalation to statutory assessment. We will also have a designated a Multi- Agency Inclusion team to work with our Children Out of School, Early Years and Post 16 Settings. The Early Years and Post 16 teams will link with a Strategic Lead Specialist Practitioner for educational transitions and our networks of Early Years and Post 16 Providers respectively. Recent local evaluation reports have led us to plan an evidence-based programme for these practitioners to deliver, including:

We will build a Community of Experts at Hand around our children and young people with SEND. By appointing additional education and health specialists to work with our children, families and schools, we will develop the knowledge, expertise and confidence within our system, to meet our children’s needs.

Our model will provide a structured, evidence-informed approach to strengthening inclusive practice across the local area. We will have strategic leads to provide professional leadership for the partnership across key areas of need, including speech, language and communication, neurodiversity, social, emotional and mental health, and transitions. They will support service development, workforce capability, intervention design, quality assurance and continuous improvement across the system including Early Years and Preparing for Adulthood particularly in relation to Best Start Family Hubs and the SEND Specialist roles. At local level, we will deliver a whole-setting model that strengthens the graduated response through delivery of group interventions, structured programmes and school-based support. This will build on learning from existing approaches such as Mental Health Support Teams and Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools. Delivery will be supported by multi-disciplinary assistant roles working as part of a supervised workforce model. Qualified specialists, including educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and other practitioners, will provide clinical and professional oversight, supervision, consultation and practice leadership to ensure that support is delivered safely, consistently and with measurable impact.

We will also launch a Multi-Agency Alternative Education Team, using the model of our successful Virtual School for Children in Care, to improve outcomes for children out of school and increase their access to multi-agency specialist support from speech and language therapists and educational psychologists. This will provide additional support for our most vulnerable children, reduce the numbers of children and young people not on a school role or attending less than 50% of the time and reduce the numbers of young adults (16-25 years) who are not in education or employment. Over time, we expect this model to contribute to improved inclusion, reduced variation, stronger confidence in mainstream settings, reduced demand for specialist provision, and better outcomes for children and young people.

- Whole School Approaches delivered by specialists and assistants - Staff consultation delivered by specialists

By Year 3, Experts at Hand will operate as a fully embedded partnership model Page 14 of 70

Local blueprint for the next 3 years

across Nottinghamshire, providing a consistent, locality-based multi-agency offer across early years, schools, colleges and alternative provision. Mainstream settings will have direct access to specialist expertise, consultation, workforce development and coordinated support without requiring escalation to statutory processes wherever needs can be met through inclusive practice and targeted intervention, including support for early identification in Early Years and stronger pathways into adulthood, employment, training and independent living.

- Group intervention with young people delivered by assistants supervised by specialists Evaluation reports to support this approach:

Nottinghamshire PINS programme – Programme for the Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (Appendix 3)

Nottinghamshire and Nottingham Mental Health Support Teams in Schools (Appendix 4)

Review of the Springboard Process for Nottinghamshire Families of Schools (Appendix 5)

National evaluation of the ELSEC Model – Early Language Support for Every Child The detail of the model is described in the infographics below

• Experts at Hand – The Nottinghamshire Approach
• Experts at Hand – Year 1 Costs
• Multi-Agency Alternative Education Team

Delivery will be achieved through our Experts at Hand Delivery Group (see Infographic 11 – Nottinghamshire SEND Governance Structure and Escalation Processes).

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Infographic 4: Experts at Hand: Nottinghamshire Approach

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Infographic 5: Experts at Hand: Multi-Agency Alternative Provision Team

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Building Block 2 – Access to specialist support and local placements

Infographic 6: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about Access to Specialist Support and Local Placements

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

Where we are Where we will be in the next 3 years

We have already started to build a system of different types of educational provision within each local area in Nottinghamshire, designed to meet the needs of children as close to home as possible. Since 2023, we have expanded our special school provision and created In School Support Hubs, Enhanced Provision Units within mainstream schools as well as Satellite Special Schools and SEND Hubs co-located with mainstream schools, as well as high-quality special school provision. We recognise that this system is complicated for our partners, parents and carers to navigate and we will simplify the types of provision moving forward.

Over the next three years, we will develop a more joined-up, responsive and forward-looking system for planning and delivering SEND support and provision. We will have a clearer understanding of children and young people’s needs across the county, a more reliable picture of the provision that is available, and more open and consistent ways of deciding when and where new places or investment are needed.

This will lead to more support being available locally, both in mainstream and specialist settings, better use of the provision we already have, and stronger partnership working with schools, trusts, early years providers, colleges and other partners to develop local solutions that reflect the needs of children, young people and families. In the future, decisions about provision will be more clearly guided by local need, travel impact and value for money, helping to reduce long journeys to school, reduce reliance on out-of-area and independent placements, and ease pressure across the wider system. Our shared data and forecasting tools will support better planning, governance will provide clear oversight and accountability, placement and planning processes will be easier to understand and more efficient, and services will work more closely together to support earlier and more consistent decisions. Our aim is that more children and young people will receive the right support at the right time, as close to home as possible, with stronger inclusion in mainstream settings alongside specialist provision where this is needed.

Through our local authority Inclusion and SEND Governance Board, our services are working more closely together and developing a clearer understanding of what children and young people need, where gaps in provision exist, and how decisions about places and investment can best be made. With a new child-level data model, we are developing more accurate forecasting of future need and management of resource. In this work, we have started to review the special school waiting list, map specialist provision across the county, explore how existing places and buildings can be used more effectively, understand the impact of high-cost placements and long journeys to school, and strengthen the information and processes that support planning. Our Family of Schools model enables children to access specialist support from EPs and Specialist Teachers and high needs top-up funding early, outside of the EHCP process. Every mainstream and local authority special school has a named link EP and support from specialist teaching teams. Children access Speech and Language, Occupational Therapy and Neurodevelopmental support through health service providers commissioned by the ICB. We want to strengthen our multi-agency support offer for children out of school and accessing alternative education. We know that many families continue to experience the pressures within the system. Demand for specialist places is increasing; too many children and young people are waiting too long for specialist support and a special school place and too many attend independent special schools at a high- cost or are in full-time alternative provision. Many children have long journeys to go to school that are not in their best interests and place significant financial pressure on local authorities. Although planning is improving, the data,

We will add SALTs, OTs and multi-disciplinary assistants to our Family of Schools network creating multi-agency teams to provide specialist support to children, as early as possible. We will also work closely with our SENCOs as key partners in our SEND workforce, to increase their capacity, confidence and expertise to support our children. We will use the Experts at Hand model to also extend our multi-agency specialist support offer into early years and post-16 settings.

We will also launch a Multi-Agency Alternative Education Team, using the model of our successful Virtual School for Children in Care, to improve outcomes for children out of school and increase their access to multi-agency specialist support from speech and language therapists and educational psychologists. This will provide additional support for our most vulnerable children, reduce the numbers of children and young people not on a school role or attending less than 50% of the time and reduce the numbers of young adults (16-25 years) who are not in education or employment.

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

systems and processes that support decision-making are not yet as strong or consistent as they need to be. The key enablers for improvement are beginning to take shape, including stronger governance, better use of data and digital tools, and closer working across education, commissioning, transport and wider SEND services. We are co-ordinating this work within our Local Authority Inclusion and SEND Governance Board and our Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Strategic Commissioning Group. These are important building blocks, and they now need to become more established and consistently applied if they are to make a lasting difference across the system.

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Building Block 3 – System leadership, local partnership collaboration and co-production

Infographic 7: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us about System Leadership, Local Partnership Collaboration & Co-production

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

Where we are Where we will be in the next 3 years

Ofsted/CQC Monitoring Visit Report, July 2025 - ‘The partnership has redesigned its governance arrangements and strategic approach to improving services for children and young people with SEND across education, health and social care. The parent carer forum (PCF) is listened to and valued. They contribute as members of workstreams relating to the ongoing SEND improvement programme. This, and the oversight of the SEND partnership improvement board, has enhanced the way that leaders are held to account.’ Since our Ofsted/CQC joint local area SEND inspection in January 2023, our partnership has gone from strength to strength. Our reformed governance structure continued independent scrutiny and stronger accountability reflect the next stage in our improvement journey. In the first year of reform, we will complete our co-produced Belonging and Inclusion Strategy 2027-2031 including our updated plans for SEND and Alternative Provision, SEND Place Planning and Communications and Engagement to provide a clear strategic framework for the next phase of reform and embed these changes across the local area partnership. Our system leaders across education, care, health and police are building a more integrated approach to supporting our children and families. Our Integrated Children and Families Senior Leadership Team are planning the implementation of the Families First and SEND Reforms in close partnership, bringing support to our families in local communities, through Family Hubs and education settings. Our Safeguarding Partnership is shaping a new priority delivery group to reduce Children Missing Education, recognising education settings as key safeguarding partners. We are ensuring that all local strategies for children consider improved educational outcomes for children with SEND. Our Council Plan 2025-2029 promotes inclusion of children with SEND in the priority ‘Stronger Families, Caring Connections’. We are confident in the strength of our leadership across the partnership and support corporately and politically to take an integrated approach to delivering both the wide-ranging reforms across children’s services. There have inevitably been some challenges in relation to the restructure of the ICB, however as a partnership we have supported each other and the used the development of this Reform Plan to capitalise on opportunities to re-launch workstreams, strengthen relationships and to continue to focus on our areas for priority action. Our SEND Partnership Assurance Improvement Group (PAIG) has representation from across the system including ICB commissioners and SEND leads, health providers,

Over the next three years, Nottinghamshire will have a stronger, more mature and more accountable partnership in which shared responsibility for SEND reform is fully embedded across education, health and care. Governance will be clearer and stronger, with all key partners actively represented, driving delivery, and operating with clear purpose, accountability and oversight. We will build on the work of our Children & Young People System Information Dashboard so that our partnership will be underpinned by high-quality child level data, routine use of our dashboards and quality assurance, and transparent escalation (see our Infographic 11 - Nottinghamshire SEND Governance and Structure and Escalation processes) and dispute resolution processes so that risks are identified early and decisions are timely, fair and focused on impact for children and young people. Please see our governance and escalation processes. Co-production will be consistently built into the way we plan, commission, deliver and review services. Parents and carers will continue to be influential within governance, and we will have stronger and more systematic ways of hearing directly from children and young people and showing how their views shape decisions through governance reporting, service design, evaluation activity and delivery group oversight. Our communications, Local Offer and engagement arrangements will be refreshed and underpinned by a coproduced updated Communications and Engagement Strategy so that families, schools and partners understand our Reform Plan, how decisions are made and how they can influence change. Co-production and service design will be embedded practice with our schools using our Family of Schools Model. This will support system wide SEND Reform on a local level. These strengthened leadership and partnership arrangements together with a commitment to co-production will support earlier intervention, better transitions, stronger confidence in the local system and more consistent delivery of the right support at the right time, in the right place, as close to home as possible. In year one, we will strengthen the local area partnership through clearer

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

special schools, post 16 and early years, children’s statutory social care, adult social care, family hubs and youth service, multi academy trusts, our Parent Carer Forum, finance representation and routes for children and young people’s voice through our Voice and Co-production arrangements. The chairing for this meeting is rotated between our Director for Education and Inclusion, Director of Quality, Safeguarding, CHC and Partnerships in the ICB, Director for Childrens Social Care and our Parent Carer Forum. We recognise that there is more work to do with children’s and adults’ social care, but we are confident that our new governance structure will drive this forward through the new membership, accountability and escalation routes. Our newly reformed governance structure has presented an opportunity to review our action logs and risk registers and use of data with a focus on meaningful impact for children. We need to strengthen the membership of our SEND Executive to include health providers and to secure the appointment of our Independent Scrutineer, but our new structure has recently provided effective escalation and partnership response in relation to a risk. Our new PAIG delivery groups are in their infancy and need to be developed. They align to our SEND Delivery Plan (this is the latest published version, with the full delivery plan for 2024-27 being monitored as a live, dynamic document through PAIG) and drive forward the ongoing improvement work around our priority actions and the wider system. As a system, we continue to face challenges with increasing levels of need for statutory and specialist interventions and provision which in turn has an impact on our financial sustainability and the lived experience of our children, young people and their families. These include requests for Education Health and Care Assessments, specialist education provision, speech and language therapy and neurodiversity assessments. We have a continued focus on the quality of our statutory assessments and plans through our Partnership Quality Assurance and Improvement Group we hold jointly with Nottingham City. We have a SEND Partnership Team to drive forward this work alongside our ongoing preparation for inspection, delivery of the Local Offer and co- production. We hold regular partnership forums with our education settings and leaders, working together to improve outcomes for our children with SEND. These include engagement sessions for school leaders with the Children and Families Senior Leadership Team in the Local Authority, Head Teacher Trust Boards and our Multi- Academy SEND Leads Network. We hold termly forums with our SENCOs and DSLs. We recognise that these methods of engagement are not always consistent.

accountability, stronger delivery group reporting, co-produced communications and engagement, refreshed Local Offer arrangements and improved use of shared data, quality assurance and escalation processes. We will deliver this by developing the following:

- Continue our strong relationship with our Parent Carer Forum. - Include and embed SENDIASS within our governance and delivery groups - Co-produced Communications and Engagement Strategy - Co-produced improved Local Offer and SEND Journey Map - High quality, independent information and guidance for parents and carers through quality assurance of SENDIASS using the minimum service standards - Evidence of meaningful engagement with children and young people that influences change. - Evidence of ‘You said, we did’ feedback loops - Evidence from parents, carers, children and young people that they have experienced meaningful change.

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

Co-production is a core value for our partnership, and we are committed to including the voices of children and young people and our families in everything we do. Our multi-agency Voice and Co-production group oversees this work for our partnership and reports to the PAIG. We are proud of the strength of the relationship we have built with our Parent Carer Forum. They are embedded within our governance and influential in our decision making. We have effective examples of co-produced work such as our Outcomes-Based SEND Strategy (2023-27) and our new Commissioning Framework for Alternative Provision (2026). NottAlone.org.uk, our local mental health partnership has been co-designed by children, young people and families. We know that we need to communicate more effectively with our wider parent carer community and we need to be better at meaningfully listening to the voice and experience of our children and young people, so that they strategically inform our planning and shape our provision.

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Building Block 4 – Encouraging inclusive culture and behaviours Infographic 8: What Children, Young People and Families Told Us About Encouraging Inclusive Cultures and Behaviours

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

Where we are Where we will be in the next 3 years

Our co-produced Local Area Partnership Outcomes-based Strategy for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (2024-27 pages 5-8) outlines how we commit to working with children and families:

Our vision is that our system will feel different to everyone in 3 years. Our children with SEND will tell us that they feel they belong in their education settings and they will be attending more, experiencing less suspension and exclusion and making progress in their learning. Our education settings will tell us they feel more confident to meet the needs of all children within a range of educational provision. Our parents and carers will tell us they are more confident that the local SEND system can meet their children’s needs. All partners will tell us they feel included informed and in partnership planning and decision-making. Our SEND Reforms delivery groups will work in synergy with the delivery of Families First Reforms and Best Start Family Hubs to create an opportunity for widespread behavioural and cultural change using the principles of Early, Local, Fair, Effective and Shared across the partnership and within our parent carer community. This will have a particular focus on Best Start Inclusion Practitioners and their integration within our Experts at Hand model to create a seamless offer for children and families. Over the next three years, inclusive practice will be embedded across our system. Workforce confidence and behaviours will be reinforced through strong leadership, peer learning, training and consistent expectations across services. We want schools, settings and partner services to share a clearer understanding of inclusive practice and to apply it more consistently, so that children and young people receive the right support earlier and locally. This will be supported by a more stable and confident workforce, stronger quality assurance, and routine use of shared data to inform practice, workforce planning and governance (see our Infographic 11: Nottinghamshire SEND Governance Structure and Escalation Processes). As a result, we expect to see a more confident and inclusive culture across mainstream education, reduced escalation to statutory and specialist support where this is not needed, and greater confidence from children, young people, families and practitioners in the local system.

- Building strong relationships - Listening and learning - Being fair and respectful We are shaping the culture of our local partnership through strengths- based approaches, with children, young people and families at the heart of all we do. We have strengthened the conditions for a more inclusive culture through redesigned governance, stronger partnership working and investment in SEND services and specialist provision. We are working closely with our education leaders to plan, monitor and celebrate local inclusive practice for children with SEND. Our Review of Inclusive Practice in Nottinghamshire Schools (July 2024) involved over 200 school leaders and paved the way for the development of our District Inclusive Practice Teams, in operation from September 2025. Our Education, Learning and Inclusion department supports work with education settings to create inclusive, welcoming spaces where all

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Local blueprint for the next 3 years

children can feel they belong. Whole school approaches to inclusive practice for children with SEND are supported by our Mental Health Support Teams, Educational Psychology Service and Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools programme. Our Building Relational Schools programme is led by our Virtual School developing attachment-aware and trauma-informed practice across Nottinghamshire nurseries, schools and colleges. 217 schools/settings and 493 people have completed this programme since 2020, with a target of 255 settings by 2029. This is helping us build and nurture stronger relationships across services, with schools, and with the children, young people and families we support. The strength of our shared ambition is a good foundation for growing the use of whole-school and relational approaches, and the improving stability and capacity created through the statutory SEND service redesign and educational psychology recruitment. We also have important enablers in place, including integrated SEND dashboards and quality assurance tools. However, too many of our children with SEND have low attendance in education, are suspended or excluded from school and are not making progress in their learning. Staff confidence, expectations and practice still vary too much between education settings and services. We are not yet consistent enough in demonstrating and celebrating our shared values in all the work that we do. We need to do more to listen and learn from children, young people, parents and carers, recognising that they understand their own journeys better than anybody else and have a right to influence the decisions that affect their lives. We also need to ensure our systems and services are experienced as fair and respectful, with language, processes and decisions that are clear, balanced, inclusive and free from discrimination or shame. This means strengthening leadership for inclusion, improving consistency in practice, developing workforce confidence and capability, and making more routine use of shared data and quality assurance to support earlier intervention, fairer decision-making and meaningful impact for children, young people and families.

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Enablers (Foundations)

These enablers will help Nottinghamshire build a more joined-up, fair and effective system that delivers the right support at the right time, in the right place, as close to home as possible for our children. In our strategy, we refer to these as our foundations, to support practice.

Data, Finance and Performance Systems

Shared data, dashboards and quality assurance Better use of child-level and partnership-level data to understand variation, track impact and guide decisions.

Improved governance and accountability – see Section 4. Governance Stronger SEND governance, clearer escalation, and more consistent decision-making. Commissioning and Sufficiency

Capital – investment strategy across early years, mainstream and FE A defined capital pipeline, including EPUs, SEND Units and special school expansion, aligned to sufficiency pressures and intended to support earlier inclusion and long-term sustainability.

New Alternative Provision commissioning framework

Experts at Hand / Multi-Agency Inclusion infrastructure A central enabler for earlier intervention, mainstream capacity building and access to specialist advice without unnecessary escalation. Workforce and Practice

Workforce confidence, skills and capacity Especially through SENCO development, specialist workforce recruitment and the wider Experts at Hand model.

Ordinarily Available Provision and a clearer graduated response A major system enabler for consistency, fairness and earlier support in mainstream settings.

Partnership and System Integration

Partnership working across education, health and care Including joint commissioning, stronger locality working and alignment with wider reforms such as Families First and Best Start in Life Programmes.

Co-production and voice of children, young people and families Including stronger mechanisms to hear directly from children and young people and embed parent carer influence.

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Success Measures

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3. What is the local area partnership’s strategy for delivering on the above?

Infographic 9: How will we deliver this change? – This overview shows how we will deliver SEND reform across the local area partnership, with core values underpinning the system, foundations enabling delivery, and delivery groups driving change. It demonstrates how these layers align to achieve improved outcomes for our children and young people.

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Our theory of change is that if we combine stronger inclusive mainstream practice, earlier multi-agency support through Experts at Hand, improved workforce capability and more consistent partnership decision-making, more children and young people will receive the right support earlier and locally. This will reduce escalation and reliance on specialist and out-of-area placements, improve attendance and belonging and increase confidence in mainstream provision. This reflects the priorities identified through our Local Partnership Maturity Assessment and local system change story. Our key inputs are the strengths and learning already in the system: strong local partnerships, Families of Schools, SENCO networks, devolved decision-making and specialist support to mainstream settings. The January 2023 local area inspection was a significant turning point, highlighting that the partnership was not yet delivering the consistent experience children, young people and families should expect. In response, we developed a Priority Action Plan and SEND Improvement Programme, strengthened leadership, increased scrutiny, clarified governance and created a more transparent understanding of where change was needed most. These inputs have enabled us to strengthen governance, improve oversight of performance, risk and delivery, and establish clearer accountability and quality assurance through SEND Executive, PAIG and delivery group reporting. We have stabilised statutory SEND services through a full-service redesign, improved workforce capacity, reduced historic backlogs, strengthened co-production with the Parent Carer Forum and developed more mature partnership working across education, health and care. The July 2025 monitoring visit recognised that effective action had been taken across both priority areas. Over the next three years we will deliver a more operational, measurable and jointly owned reform programme. In year one, we will implement Ordinarily Available Provision and Targeted Provision guidance, redesign decision-making panels, begin phased delivery of Experts at Hand in priority settings and localities, and strengthen our Multi-Agency Alternative Education Team for children who are out of school or at risk of becoming so. These reforms will align with Family Hubs, Best Start and wider Families First developments so that support is easier to access earlier, locally and through a more joined-up pathway. We will also build on our strong local authority Youth Service and our developing Integrated Adolescence Strategy across Children and Families Services. Ordinarily available and targeted provision will help schools identify and meet need earlier and more consistently. Experts at Hand will provide consultation, whole-setting support, targeted interventions and supervised specialist input so that more children receive timely help at SEN Support level without unnecessary escalation. The Local Placements workstream will increase local mainstream and specialist capacity and improve place planning, while the Multi-Agency Alternative Education Team will support children who are educated other than at school to re-engage with education in their local communities wherever possible. The intended outcomes are that mainstream practice becomes more confident and consistent, children and young people receive support earlier, and more needs are met through ordinarily available and targeted provision, supported by earlier access to multi-agency advice and intervention. We are clear that reducing specialist demand over time will not be achieved by restricting access. It will be achieved by improving the quality, consistency and timeliness of support before needs escalate. The intended impact is improved attendance, belonging and family confidence, fewer avoidable requests for EHC needs assessments, reduced waiting times and specialist placement pressure, less reliance on independent and out-of-area provision, and better value for money. We will monitor progress through proxy and outcome measures, shared dashboards, child-level data, quality assurance and feedback from

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children, young people and families. Accountability for delivery will sit across the partnership, with each reform workstream led through named governance routes and reported through PAIG to SEND Executive. Wider dependencies, including NHS reform, workforce availability and local government reorganisation, will be managed through joint commissioning, phased implementation and strengthened partnership governance (see Section 4. Governance and 10. Dependencies).

4. Please upload a completed copy of the Local Partnership Maturity Assessment Tool.

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5. What is the local area partnership roadmap for the next 3 years?

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Local roadmap for the next 3 years

2026/27 2027/28 2028/29

- Recruiting a multi-agency specialist team (Ep, Salt, assistants, Specialist Teacher) to support the Multi-agency Alternative Provision Team - Recruiting 5 Strategic Leads/Senior Practitioners to drive reform strategy across key areas of need:

strategy alongside the SEMH Strategic Partnership Lead and strengthening the support offer to mainstream schools Scale Experts at Hand by: - Ensuring every Family of Schools has a link SALT alongside existing link EP and Specialist Teachers - Embedding assistant practitioners delivering group interventions across all schools, with evidence of impact emerging - Expanding the OT sensory service within the Family of Schools model - Establishing a Principal OT role within the Local Authority - Implementing a new OT service model with additional posts recruited to - Publishing Nottinghamshire Local Area Partnership Strategy for each area, overseen by SEND governance structures

- Ensuring full coverage so every Family of Schools has access to a multi- agency team including Ep, Salt, Specialist Teachers and OT - Embedding delivery of group interventions and support to mainstream schools through assistant practitioners - Ensuring specialists provide whole- school support, consultation and advice as standard - Maintaining delivery in priority areas (SLCN, neurodiversity, SEMH, transitions and sensory needs) through Strategic Leads - Maintaining special school outreach support to mainstream settings - Maintaining a coordinated OT service model based on earlier mapping and service development work

• SLCN
• Neurodiversity
• SEMH
• Transitions (Early Years, Secondary, Post 16)
• Sensory Needs including OT provision

- Developing a programme of outreach support from local special schools to support mainstream inclusion, in partnership with the Local Special Schools Trust Board - Completing mapping activity to combine existing OT provision across the system and identify gaps for recruitment

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Local roadmap for the next 3 years

2026/27 2027/28 2028/29

Building Block

Access to specialist support and local placements

Strengthen governance and oversight for SEND sufficiency by: - Establishing more accountable and collaborative SEND place

Scale the local placements approach across the partnership by: - Extending learning from test-and-

Embed the local placements approach as business as usual by: - Maintaining consistent placement

planning arrangements - Strengthening partnership oversight through programme

learn activity across all localities - Embedding improved placement

processes, pathways and decision- making across all localities - Reducing variation in access to specialist

governance and PAIG - Aligning SEND priorities through the Strategic Commissioning

processes, tools and pathways - Strengthening consistency in

provision - Ensuring clearer and more transparent

Group with SEND Reform and Experts at Hand Use test-and-learn to develop local placement approaches by: - Completing the Bassetlaw test-and-learn phase, including

placement decision-making Strengthen planning, forecasting and sufficiency by: - Using improved data and forecasting

placement pathways Sustain a coherent and sustainable local continuum of provision by: - Ensuring provision is better aligned to

Newark and Foxwood - Using learning to refine placement processes, tools and

to inform local provision planning - Aligning sufficiency planning with

current and future need - Strengthening sufficiency planning and

pathways - Identifying gaps in the local graduated continuum and

identified gaps in the local continuum - Supporting development of local

local capacity management - Maintaining stronger alignment between

informing outreach development Set the overall direction for local provision and sufficiency by: - Completing the Belonging and Inclusion Strategy 2027-2031

provision to meet emerging need Improve access to local provision by: - Increasing the number of children and

need, placement planning and provision Embed commissioning and sufficiency planning as business as usual by: - Sustaining joint oversight and shared

young people accessing support closer to home - Strengthening outreach and local

incorporating SEND and Alternative Provision and SEND Place Planning - Setting direction for sufficiency, alternative provision, EOTAS,

responsibility across partners - Maintaining clearer investment choices

solutions to reduce escalation - Reducing reliance on out-of-area and

capital planning and commissioning Strengthen commissioning arrangements by: - Aligning commissioning priorities with SEND Reform and

and local provision growth - Supporting a more sustainable, locally

high-cost placements where appropriate

responsive system over time Experts at Hand - Agreeing joint commissioning arrangements with Nottingham City for health specialist and assistant roles - Launching the co-produced Alternative Provision Framework - Improving alignment between EHCP and non-EHCP pathways Improve planning intelligence and system coordination by: - Strengthening provider engagement and commissioning processes - Improving visibility of demand, waiting lists and local capacity - Using year one learning to inform future commissioning and delivery priorities Page 37 of 70

Local roadmap for the next 3 years

2026/27 2027/28 2028/29

Building Block

System leadership, local partnership collaboration and co- production

Strengthen partnership governance and accountability by: - Embedding the Voice and Experience Group with clear

Embed stronger partnership governance and accountability by: - Ensuring consistent partner

Embed strong and accountable partnership leadership by: - Sustaining strong governance with clear accountability, oversight and shared responsibility - Ensuring partners routinely work together to plan, deliver and improve services - Maintaining effective escalation and decision-making processes Embed co-production as business as usual by: - Ensuring co-production is consistently built into planning, commissioning, delivery and review - Sustaining strong involvement of parents, carers and children and young people in governance - Maintaining systematic approaches to participation and feedback across the partnership Sustain communication, engagement and transparency by: - Embedding the Communications and Engagement Strategy and Local Offer as core system tools - Ensuring families, schools and partners understand how decisions are made and how to influence them - Maintaining clear and accessible information and guidance Sustain data, quality assurance and improvement by: - Maintaining a mature data and performance framework with routine use of dashboards - Ensuring QA, feedback and performance reporting drive continuous improvement

reporting into PAIG - Strengthening delivery group reporting, escalation and

engagement and shared responsibility across delivery - Strengthening routine use of

oversight arrangements - Ensuring active representation of key partners across

governance and delivery Establish consistent approaches to co-production and engagement by: - Mapping existing feedback routes across the partnership - Agreeing a shared approach to participation, co-production

governance, escalation and decision- making processes - Using partnership structures to drive

delivery and manage system risks Embed co-production across planning, delivery & improvement by: - Ensuring participation and co-

and experience reporting - Continuing to strengthen relationships with the Parent Carer

Forum and embedding SENDIASS Develop communication and engagement approach by: - Co-producing the Communications and Engagement Strategy

production are routinely used across services and governance - Strengthening the role of parents,

carers and children and young people in decision-making - Embedding Family of Schools

2027–2031 - Refreshing the Local Offer and SEND journey information - Improving access to high-quality information, advice and

approaches to support local co- production Strengthen communication, engagement and transparency by: - Embedding delivery of the

guidance Improve how feedback and participation are used by: - Establishing a year one baseline from SEND Reform surveys

and engagement - Introducing regular “You said, we did” reporting - Strengthening evidence that children, young people and

Communications and Engagement Strategy - Ensuring consistent “You said, we

families influence change Strengthen data, quality assurance and oversight by: - Building on the Children & Young People System Information

did” reporting across services - Improving how families, schools and

partners understand and influence the system Embed data, quality assurance and oversight by: - Expanding use of dashboards and

Dashboard - Improving use of shared data, QA and reporting across the

partnership - Embedding clearer escalation and dispute resolution

processes child-level data to inform decision- making - Strengthening QA activity and ensuring findings inform improvement Page 38 of 70

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Local roadmap for the next 3 years

2026/27 2027/28 2028/29

Success Measure

• More children

attending specialist provision within or attached to their local mainstream school

Enhanced Provision Units (2025/2026) = 136 Specialist Units (2025/2026) = 106 Waiting for a Special School Place (May 2026) = 329

Enhanced Provision Units (2025/2026) = 176 Specialist Units (2025/2026) = 130 Waiting for a Special School Place

Enhanced Provision Units (2025/2026) = 256 Specialist Units (2025/2026) = 154 Waiting for a Special School Place (May

(May 2027) = 219

2028) = 109

Success Measure

• Our parents

and carers have more trust and more positive experiences of our local SEND system

Formal Complaints received from parents and carers about delays and decisions 2028 = 76

Formal Complaints received from parents and carers about delays and decisions 2028 = 61

Formal Complaints received from parents and carers about delays and decisions 2028 = 46

Parents and carers reporting concerns about delays and waiting times = 50%

Parents and carers reporting concerns about delays and waiting times = 40%

Parents and carers reporting concerns about delays and waiting times = 30%

Parents and carers reporting issues relating to poor communication = 37%

Parents and carers reporting issues relating to poor communication = 30%

Parents and carers reporting issues relating to poor communication = 23%

Parents and carers reporting that mainstream schools cannot meet their child’s needs = 34%

Parents and carers reporting that mainstream schools cannot meet their child’s needs = 28%

Parents and carers reporting that mainstream schools cannot meet their child’s needs = 20%

SEND Reforms Survey April/May 2026: ‘Help shape SEND support in Nottinghamshire - 1620 responses from parents and carers

SEND Reforms Survey April/May 2026: ‘Help shape SEND support in Nottinghamshire - 1620 responses from parents and carers

SEND Reforms Survey April/May 2026: ‘Help shape SEND support in Nottinghamshire - 1620 responses from parents and carers

Parent Carer Forum representative continues as Co-Chair of the SEND Partnership Assurance and Improvement Group (PAIG)

Parent Carer Forum representative continues as Co-Chair of the SEND Partnership Assurance and Improvement Group (PAIG)

Parent Carer Forum representative continues as Co-Chair of the SEND Partnership Assurance and Improvement Group (PAIG)

Success Measure

• School leaders

are more confident that our local SEND system can meet our children’s needs earlier

School Leaders’ Survey Confidence Average response 6/10 (Feb 2027, Head Teachers and SENCOs) Schools/education settings completed the Nottinghamshire Building Relational Schools Programme = 234 (May 2027)

School Leaders’ Survey Confidence Average response 7/10 (Feb 2028, Head Teachers and SENCOs) Schools/education settings completed the Nottinghamshire Building Relational Schools Programme = 251 (May 2028)

School Leaders’ Survey Confidence Average response 8/10 (Feb 2029, Head Teachers and SENCOs) Schools/education settings completed the Nottinghamshire Building Relational Schools Programme = 267 (May 2029)

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Page Break

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What will the local area partnership deliver in the first year?

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Infographic 10: Experts at Hand - Year 1 Costs

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6. How will the local area partnership deliver the first-year plan?

We will deliver the first-year plan through our Inclusion and SEND Transformation Programme and our delivery groups identified working together across education, health and care as one local partnership (please see Infographic 9 - How We Will Deliver This Change). The delivery of the SEND Reform will have close alignment with other local and national reforms identified in “9. Dependencies’”, but with a particular focus The Families First and Best Start in Life reform programmes. Existing programme management resource will be extended to include:

• 1 Programme Manager • 5 Project Managers • 6 Programme Officers • 1 Recruitment Officer • 1 Data Officer Additional leadership capacity for programme oversight, system mapping and development and establishment of a Multi-Agency Alternative Education Team will be provided through Head of Service and Team Leader roles within the local authority and external consultancy capacity. The programme is overseen by the Inclusion and SEND Transformation Board comprising of local authority Education leadership and key partners within finance, commissioning, transformation, communications, HR and Transport. Extending the board to include ICB partners will enable oversight of the reform delivery. An overview of how our Inclusion and SEND Transformation Programme connects into our wider SEND Partnership governance structures can be found here – Infographic 11: Nottinghamshire SEND Governance Structure & Escalation Processes. We have already strengthened our foundations through changes to our statutory SEND service and by creating a SEND Partnership Team. This gives us a stronger base to coordinate reform work alongside our day-to-day responsibilities, with clear milestones, accountability, defined delivery roles and responsibilities, and regular review of progress. We will continue to monitor workforce capacity, including specialist roles, as part of delivery oversight to ensure sufficient capacity is in place to deliver reform priorities. We will use our existing partnership groups to keep delivery on track, including our delivery groups, the Partnership Assurance and Improvement Group and the SEND Executive Leadership Group, with continued independent scrutiny. These groups will help us check progress, identify risks early, remove barriers and stay focused on the difference the plan is making for children and young people. We will also draw on support from corporate services across the Council and partnership, including finance, commissioning, workforce development, digital, legal, communications and performance. This will help us make good decisions, use resources well, support workforce capacity and sustainability, and keep pace with delivery. We recognise the risks initially around recruitment to the additional workforce capacity and then sufficiency and sustainability. In the first 12 months we will recruit to five strategic/clinical lead posts; Speech and Language Therapy (Advanced Practitioner Role), Occupational Health, Social Emotional and Mental Health, Neurodiversity and Transitions. These roles would drive forward the strategy and delivery for the

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identified areas of need across the Local Area Partnership in relation to workforce recruitment, development, retention and sustainability, evidence-based practice models and approaches through an accessible structured support offer for all education settings including early years and post 16. We will continue to improve how we use data, information and digital tools so that we can see clearly whether the plan is making a difference. We will build on our shared dashboard, child-level data and digital tools to bring together information about performance, quality, feedback from children, young people and families, and financial and sufficiency pressures. This will help us track progress against milestones and measures, support quality assurance and inform decision-making across the partnership. It will also help us keep a close eye on areas such as EHCP and specialist assessment timeliness, annual reviews, attendance, exclusions, placement trends and the use of independent provision. By using this information effectively across the partnership, we will better understand where pressures are building and respond more quickly where progress is off track.

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7. Other Funding

Where we are now Please see Appendix 6 - Types of Educational Provision for Children with SEND in Nottinghamshire

• Most children and young people with SEND in Nottinghamshire are supported in mainstream settings, with around 17,440 children supported through SEN Support and around 4,000 receiving high needs top-up funding. • We already have a continuum of provision that includes in-school support hubs, Enhanced Provision Units, SEND Units, satellite special school provision, maintained special schools, academies and alternative provision. • Capital projects are identified and explored through the NCC SEND Place Planning Group (Estates, Place Planning, ARC, Education and SEND Teams) Chaired by Head of Service Education, Quality, Provision and Effectiveness based on projected need in each District • Project Initiation Document approved by Cabinet Member for Education and SEND and sent to Strategic Place Planning Board for approval for feasibility Chaired by Director of Education Learning and Inclusion • Decision to progress the project made by Economic Development and Asset Management chaired by the Cabinet Member for Economic Development & Asset Management • We know that the current landscape is still too complex and that access to the right support is not yet consistent enough across localities. We also know that long journeys and reliance on higher-cost independent provision place pressure on children, families and the wider system and we have around 400 children waiting for specialist provision outside of a mainstream setting. Plans for the next 12 months

• We will use high needs capital to strengthen inclusion, increase local capacity and improve access to the right provision in the right place. Our approach is to use capital investment to build a clearer continuum of provision across mainstream, inclusion bases and specialist settings, so that more children and young people can be supported closer to home. • We will use capital investment to improve the suitability of the mainstream estate through adaptations such as ramps, lifts, breakout spaces, sensory areas, accessible hygiene facilities and assistive technology. • We will increase local specialist capacity where this is necessary, including the 160 new places at Horizons Academy in Mansfield from January 2026, • We will continue to engage relevant multi-academy trusts, schools and providers through our SEND Place Planning Group, special school trust board and wider partnership arrangements so that capital investment is aligned with local need, travel patterns and value for money. • We have launched our co-produced Alternative Provision Commissioning Framework to align with the three tiers identified in the White Paper, to seek to secure improved access to high-quality Alternative Provision places particularly in areas of the County that currently have limited access and are exploring private capital investment opportunities. • We are an Authority who was awarded a special free school but is now receiving a capital payment as an alternative. This funding will enable us to expand two of our existing special schools and to invest in additional mainstream school-based SEND/Satellite Units. • We will continue to work collaboratively with Portland College (post 16) on future development plans.

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• We will continue to build our partnership with Nottingham City to promote routes to work, including Supported Internships, for our young people with SEND. • Through this work, we want more children and young people to be supported locally, fewer families to face long journeys, and less reliance on independent provision where local solutions can meet need appropriately.

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8. System partner and stakeholder engagement, and co-production

This plan, alongside our SEND Maturity Assessment, has been developed with partners, parents, carers, children and young people, building on the strong foundations of our local area partnership. We will continue this collaborative approach during implementation, with co- production and shared responsibility across education, health and care.

We have used our established governance arrangements and a newly created SEND Reform Working Group, with representation from across education, health and care has led the development of the Reform Plan, with oversight from the SEND Executive Leadership Group and the PAIG. A key element has been the SEND Reform Maturity Assessment, where partners worked together through interactive sessions to review evidence and agree Nottinghamshire’s position across the maturity continuum, building a shared understanding of strengths, pressures and priorities.

Two partnership webinars have brought together over 200 colleagues across services to validate findings and shape priorities. Alongside this, three surveys gathered views from parents and carers, children and young people, and professionals. A total of 769 responses were received, including 540 from parents and carers, 148 from professionals and 81 from children and young people. These insights have directly shaped the plan, including informing priorities around early support, inclusion in mainstream settings and improved communication with families. For example, feedback from families and professionals has strengthened the focus on earlier intervention through Experts at Hand and clearer communication through Ordinarily Available Provision. We will continue to share what we heard and how it has influenced decisions through clear “you said, we did” feedback loops.

The Voice and Experience Group, reporting into PAIG, brings together the Parent Carer Forum, youth service and partners across services, providing a structured approach to co-production. This group is in its infancy, but the surveys used to shape this plan will form the basis to develop a consistent framework for capturing and responding to the views of parents and carers, children and young people, ensuring their input influences both strategic priorities and service design and creating you said we did feedback loops. The group will draw on the voices and experiences across the system, for example the Youth Forum from Nottinghamshire Health Care Trust are attending our next meeting. We took part in the East Midlands RIIA Peer Challenge, and this has informed our work plan for this group.

Delivery of our Reform Plan will be co-produced through established partnership structures, including PAIG, delivery groups and the Voice and Experience Group. Schools and settings will be engaged through Families of Schools, SENCO networks, Springboard meetings, local forums and trust-level engagement, including direct engagement with multi-academy trust leaders. Our existing forums include mainstream, special and early years settings, alternative provision, further education and post-16 providers, including those outside Nottinghamshire attended by our young people, with a strengthened focus on FE engagement to support preparation for adulthood and consistent pathways beyond school. Focussed work will be undertaken by the Voice and Experience Group to ensure the partnership captures the views, experiences and insights from seldom heard groups. We recognise the need to strengthen engagement with the voluntary sector, independent special schools and smaller alternative providers.

We review our SENDIASS data at quarterly contract review meetings, we will strengthen the use of this data to support families to understand reform changes, contribute to engagement activity and resolve concerns at an early stage. We will strengthen the voice of children and young people through the Pioneers Youth Forum and targeted engagement, particularly around transitions and reform priorities. Surveys, workshops, co-production activity, supported by clear feedback loops, will ensure families and young people can see how their views have influenced decisions, including regular updates through partnership communications, engagement events and published feedback

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summaries.

Alongside this, we will strengthen early dispute resolution arrangements, supporting families and settings to resolve concerns through advice, mediation and co-production wherever possible. In our Statutory SEND Service, we have a dedicated Advanced Practitioner for Complaints to ensure our parents and carers are responded to as quickly as possible to have resolve concerns at the earliest opportunity and so that we can learn from identified themes.

In our first 12 months we will work closely with our parent and carer groups so that their knowledge and lived experience informs the delivery of our Experts at Hand model particularly in relation to how parents and carers will access the additional support and what they might expect the impact to be for them and their children. We will review our Partnership Communication Strategy with the Parent Carer Forum to reflect the growing maturity of our co-production and participation and our Reform priorities. We also welcome support from the Department for Education in engaging education leaders and parent carer representatives through summer term events to strengthen shared understanding and sustain confidence across the system.

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9. Risks and Mitigations (5 maximum risks)

Please see the DfE Risk Matrix Guidance (Annex C) for information regarding RAG scoring Please see our Infographic 11: Nottinghamshire SEND Governance Structure and Escalation Processes For information on our dependency management processes, please see “9. Dependencies”

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10. Dependencies

Nottinghamshire’s SEND Reform Plan sits within a wider programme of national and local reform. These reforms strive to achieve better outcomes for children and young people with SEND, but they also create dependencies that may affect pace and delivery. To mitigate this risk, we are taking a whole-system approach, aligning SEND reform with changes across health, local government, children’s social care, early years and education so that support is earlier, more joined up and more sustainable. These dependencies are routinely considered through delivery planning, risk management and mitigation. NHS reform is a key dependency, including the shift towards community-based care, digital transformation and prevention. Changes to ICB structures, commissioning and workforce capacity may affect access to therapies, neurodevelopmental pathways and the specialist support needed to deliver this plan, particularly Experts at Hand and earlier multi-agency support. We will manage this through joint leadership across our SEND Executive and PAIG that will ensure strategic oversight and mitigation of system risks that may impact on delivery. Our Roadmap and Local Delivery Plan illustrate how we have taken these risks into account and mitigated them. For example, we are working together with Nottingham City on our Experts at Hand Model to mitigate against risks to joint commissioning arrangements that may delay recruitment to roles and in relation to future planning for Local Government Re-organisation. In addition, Local Government Reorganisation may affect leadership capacity, governance, commissioning, digital systems and budgets. This creates a risk to delivery across inclusion, sufficiency, workforce and data, especially SEND place planning, transport, commissioning and shared systems. We will manage this through clear accountability and alignment with our corporate transition planning. Reforms to children’s social care and early help, including the Families First Partnership Programme, Best Start in Life and Family Hubs, are closely aligned within our SEND roadmap. Together, they strengthen expectations around the five core principles of the SEND Reform Early, Local, Fair, Effective and Shared. This supports our ambition to provide the right support, in the right place, at the right time by strengthening earlier intervention, joined-up pathways, transitions into school, ordinarily available provision and the wider graduated response. These reforms create the conditions for needs-led provision, information sharing and partnership working, with direct implications for early help, Family Hubs, inclusive mainstream practice and alternative education. We will embrace the reforms and the opportunities for system wide change through integrated leadership, aligned delivery plans, locality arrangements and regular review of provision guidance, workforce development and quality assurance so that local delivery makes best use of the investment given to us through the reforms and has the biggest impact for our children and families across Nottinghamshire. An example of this is we will work across the reforms to understand the needs of our local communities by collating what we already know, identifying the gaps and strengthening our data. We will identify the interdependencies of the reforms for example the alignment of Best Start Inclusion Practitioners in our Experts at Hand Model. Our principle through our integrated approach will be services that are valuable for all and vital for some with inclusion, attendance, belonging and achievement at the heart of our practice. Taken together, these reforms require strong partnership leadership, clear governance and a flexible delivery approach. We will manage these dependencies through shared oversight, integrated programme delivery, phased implementation and regular review of workforce, finance, commissioning, data and service performance through existing partnership governance, including the SEND Executive Leadership Group, PAIG, the Local Authority Operational Change Board, Corporate Leadership Team and the Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire Strategic Commissioning Group. The Chief Executives of the Local Area Partnership will receive assurance on delivery and impact through our

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Independent Scrutineer, and in the first three months we will consider joint arrangements with our Safeguarding Children Partnership and Nottingham City SEND governance.

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Section 3 – Monitoring and Evaluation

11. How will the local area partnership know delivery is on track?

As a partnership, we will use the following Monitoring Tools and Processes to track delivery against our five success measures, understand whether reform activity is having the intended impact, and support live decision-making so that we can adapt delivery where progress is off track. Our Partnership Shared Children and Young People System Information Dashboard We will use our shared dashboard to bring together partnership-wide data across education, health, care, finance, sufficiency and lived experience. This will help us track progress against the five success measures, identify pressure early, test whether reform activity is being delivered as intended, and assess whether it is improving children and young people’s experiences and outcomes.

• Understanding need: Monitor requests for EHC needs assessments, advice timeliness, plan volumes, waiting times, placement pressures, mediation and tribunal activity, and variation by age, locality and provision type. • Service delivery: Implementation of Experts at Hand and other reform activity, including workforce deployment, access to specialist support, intervention delivery, local provision growth and progress against year-one milestones. • Quality: Statutory timeliness, annual reviews, audit findings, complaints, compliments and family feedback. Quality assurance activity, including audit, dip sampling, moderation and practice review, will test whether standards are consistent and whether improvement actions are effective. • Child Outcomes: Education attendance, exclusion, participation, transitions, preparation for adulthood, local placement trends and family confidence to assess whether reform is leading to measurable improvement in inclusion, experience and value for money. The dashboard will draw on operational and partnership reports used weekly and monthly by senior leaders to monitor performance, demand, quality, finance and service delivery, including statutory SEND, health service waiting times and placement pressures. SEND data officers will produce a six-weekly report for scrutiny by PAIG, with deep dives scheduled for areas of priority action such as statutory assessment, annual review timeliness, health service waiting times and variation across localities or groups of children. Voice and Experience Delivery Group to measure meaningful impact of reforms Alongside quantitative data, lived experience will be central to monitoring and adaptation. The Voice and Experience Delivery Group will bring together insight from surveys, co-production activity, complaints, practitioner feedback, SENDIASS intelligence and Parent Carer Forum engagement so that governance can test not only whether activity has happened, but whether children, young people and families feel the difference. We will use our Annual SEND Survey of school leaders, parents and carers, young people and multi-agency partners to test meaningful progress and confidence in the local system over time, supported by “You said, we did” feedback loops and a Learning History to record system change in real time. Evaluation of the Experts at Hand Approach We will embed formal evaluation into the Experts at Hand approach to evaluate the impact of the evidence-based interventions and approaches delivered in mainstream schools. This evaluation will be built into the service delivery model and facilitated by the project team. Impact reports will be shared annually with the PAIG and SEND Executive.

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Feedback and Adaptation Mechanisms, Including an action research approach based on Assess, Plan, Do and Review, so that learning from delivery, data and lived experience is used to refine the reform programme as it progresses. A Learning History Approach We will use this approach to capture the voice and experience of leaders, practitioners, children and their families so that we can learn from our experience of the reforms and delivery of significant change. Delivery groups will report six-weekly to PAIG on progress against milestones, trajectories, risks, dependencies and the five success measures, taking away partnership feedback and agreed adaptations. Quarterly reporting to the Department for Education will test progress against baselines and trajectories, maintain accountability across the partnership and support refinement where evidence shows that change is not yet having the intended impact. Exception reporting will be used where milestones slip, trajectories fall behind, risks increase or data shows unacceptable variation. Partners will agree corrective actions, timescales and named accountability, with escalation to SEND Executive where recovery requires strategic decision-making, additional resource or system leadership.

12. Reporting to DfE

Please attach the data template.

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Section 4 – Governance

13. How will the local area partnership ensure delivery of plans remain on track?

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Governance Mechanism

Purpose/ Responsibilities

Membership

Cadence

Decision Rights

Escalation Route

Corporate Leadership Team (CLT)

Provides senior officer leadership across the Council, ensuring alignment of corporate priorities, resources and delivery.

Chaired by the Chief Executive.

Weekly - Chaired by the Chief

Receives escalation from SEND Executive Leadership Group where corporate leadership, resource allocation or cross- council coordination is required

Executive.

Membership comprises Corporate / Executive Directors, including the Executive Director for Children and Families (statutory lead for SEND) and S151 Officer

- Membership comprises the most senior officer leadership of the Council, including: Supports delivery of major transformation and improvement programmes, including SEND reform, by providing strategic direction, oversight and coordination across services.

- The Chief Executive Is sighted on system assurance through Chief Executive engagement with the Independent Scrutineer, supporting alignment between SEND reform delivery and corporate oversight Ensures that SEND reform is aligned with wider organisational priorities, capacity and system change activity.

- Corporate / Executive Directors responsible for major service areas - Executive Director for Children and Families (statutory lead for SEND) SEND and Inclusion Executive Leadership Group (SEND and AP Partnership Board) Provides strategic leadership and retains statutory accountability for SEND. Oversees delivery of the SEND Reform Plan, including progress against priorities, performance and risk. Receives assurance reports from PAIG on delivery, trajectories and system performance and sets overall direction. Our preference is for our meetings to be face to face, but we take a flexible approach to hybrid and virtual to ensure they are accessible. All partners are expected to have a named deputy who can attend when they can’t and can make decisions on their behalf. The Terms of Reference can be found in Appendix 7.

Jointly chaired by the Executive Director for Children and Families (Nottinghamshire County Council) and the Executive Director of Quality (Nursing) (ICB).

Quarterly - Approves SEND

Receives escalation from PAIG and Independent Scrutineer; escalates to either the Health and Wellbeing Board or by exception to Chief Executives and system partners

strategy and Reform Plan; - sets and amends

priorities; - agrees strategic

Independent Scrutineer.

Senior Responsible Owner – Director for Education, and Inclusion

CEO of a MAT which has mainstream and specialist settings,

A special school principal,

Nottinghamshire Parent Carer Forum Lead

Senior leads from our local health providers

Data, comms and finance leads from the local authority and ICB We are exploring the membership of the Chair of the Schools Forum

direction and resource allocation; - signs off external

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Infographic 11: Nottinghamshire SEND Governance Structure and Escalation Processes

This diagram summarises the governance structure supporting delivery of the SEND Reform Plan, showing how workstreams are delivered, monitored and assured across the local area partnership. It sets out the roles of delivery groups, programme boards and strategic governance, with clear escalation routes for risks, issues and decisions from operational delivery through PAIG to SEND Executive and, where necessary, to Chief Executives.

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Infographic 12: Shared Governance Across System Partnerships

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Section 5 – Central Government Support

14. How can we help you?

We are committed to reforming our SEND system to support better outcomes for our children and young people. We welcome your support in helping us make ambitious plans but also manage expectations about delivery within the proposed timescales, within the pressures that exist in the system.

clarifying national expectations and sequencing of reforms as policy and legislative detail emerges,

clarifying support in relation to the inevitable impact of other national reforms on timescales and delivery; for example Local Government Re- organisation

addressing national workforce shortages which constrain local capacity,

supporting data, analytics and benchmarking to enable meaningful comparison and improvement,

facilitating peer learning between local areas facing similar challenges,

ongoing dialogue on the structural drivers of High Needs Block pressure which are outside local control

consideration and flexibility of expectations around delivery of these reforms based on the impact of Local Government Reorganisation

Clarifying the impact of these reforms on the Local Area SEND Inspection framework timelines and expectations DfE engagement in key partnership events, particularly during early implementation, would provide valuable support in maintaining momentum and confidence across the system.

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Annex B - Supporting Documents

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Annex C – Risk Matrix

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