The Department for Education has lifted the improvement notice issued to Hertfordshire County Council over special educational needs and disabilities services. GOV.UK records show the notice, first issued on 15 January 2024, was moved to the closed list after being lifted on 15 April 2026. (gov.uk) The intervention followed an Ofsted and Care Quality Commission area SEND inspection carried out in July 2023 and published on 10 November 2023. That inspection found widespread and systemic failings which were causing significant concern about children and young people’s experiences and outcomes. (files.ofsted.gov.uk)
The notice set out specific remedial action for Hertfordshire County Council, the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board and partner agencies. The Department for Education required urgent progress on two priority areas: a shared and accurate SEND data dashboard, and stronger joint governance and quality assurance across the local system. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) That framing is important because area SEND inspection outcomes are about the whole local area partnership rather than one organisation acting alone. In Hertfordshire’s case, the notice addressed how education, health and care bodies planned services, monitored performance and corrected weak delivery across the county. (files.ofsted.gov.uk)
The underlying inspection findings were detailed and operational. Ofsted and CQC said too many children and young people were waiting too long for assessment and for suitable provision, too many education, health and care plans were of poor quality, and too many parents and carers were being pushed into formal routes to secure support. (files.ofsted.gov.uk) Inspectors also found that some children with SEND were not accessing full-time education or provision that met need, while some parents felt they had no realistic option other than home education until appropriate placements became available. The five areas for improvement covered access to health services, the quality of EHC plans, oversight of attendance and part-time timetables, delays across services including ASD, ADHD, mental health, audiology and speech and language, and earlier resolution of parental concerns. (files.ofsted.gov.uk)
The Department for Education’s rationale for lifting the notice was set out in the Secretary of State’s letter of 15 April 2026. Bridget Phillipson said the Department had been reassured by the October 2025 monitoring inspection and by evidence gathered by regional officials on Hertfordshire’s progress. (hertfordshire.gov.uk) The letter pointed to several changes: faster use of a shared data dashboard, 20-week EHCP timeliness above the national average for the previous eight months, a SEND Improvement Board and Quality Assurance Board that were firmly in place, and stronger co-production through Voices of Hertfordshire and the Parent Carer Forum. On that basis, ministers decided the formal notice could be lifted. (hertfordshire.gov.uk)
The monitoring outcome, however, did not amount to a finding that all concerns had been resolved. In December 2025, Ofsted and CQC concluded that Hertfordshire had taken effective action on both priority areas, but they also said many families still did not see enough improvement in their day-to-day experience of the SEND system. (files.ofsted.gov.uk) The same monitoring letter identified continuing pressure points, including geographical inequity, variable quality in older EHC plans, long waits for neurodevelopmental assessments and continuing unacceptable delays for some audiology assessments and treatment. Taken together, those documents indicate that governance and oversight improved sufficiently for the notice to close, while frontline consistency remained uneven. (files.ofsted.gov.uk)
For Hertfordshire’s schools, providers and families, the practical effect is that the January 2024 improvement notice is no longer in force. Even so, Department for Education oversight has not ended. In the 15 April 2026 letter, ministers said each local area partnership had been commissioned in March 2026 to submit a Local SEND Reform Plan by June 2026, supported by a Local Partnership Maturity Assessment. (hertfordshire.gov.uk) The Department also said formal monitoring would continue with regional NHS England colleagues and warned that further intervention could still be considered if Hertfordshire’s reform plan failed to meet minimum requirements or if progress slowed. The next test, therefore, is not whether the notice remains closed on paper, but whether children and young people receive faster, clearer and more reliable SEND support in practice. (hertfordshire.gov.uk)