Special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision in the Maldon area is facing a tight timescale to ensure it is fit for purpose when the service is re-assessed as soon as the spring.

Essex County Council (ECC) says it is addressing "significant weaknesses" in special educational needs and disability (SEND) after a health and social care regulator CQC (Care Quality Commission) and OFSTED report in November 2019 found "inequality and inconsistency" across the county.

Services were warned that they faced re-inspection 18 months later – as soon as May – by which time, it is expected that "significant progress" has been made to address issues around the county's practice in identifying the needs of children and young people with moderate learning difficulties.

This relates to the way that partners work together to plan services and in the quality of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans.

But the coronavirus crisis has placed extra pressure on ECC and its partners, which are redesigning its SEND services.

The three areas of significant weakness identified during the inspection were the reasons for and accuracy of the high proportions of children and young people identified with moderate learning difficulties.

It added that the joint commissioning arrangements between the local authority and CCGs (Clincial Commissioning Groups) do not work well enough to provide children and young people with the services that they need.

The inspection also found that too many healthcare plans do not include the information needed to secure high-quality outcomes for children and young people.

Ralph Holloway, head of SEND strategy and innovation at ECC, said: "So the challenge is that timescales are tight and mobilisation is significant across a number of work streams.

"There are a lot of partners involved and a lot of deliverers involved in the services.

"Eighteen months was always going to be a challenge but then you put a pandemic into the middle of that and it becomes even more difficult.

"Some of our teams are struggling with capacity as a result of Covid and it's even more the case for health colleagues that some of them have had to be redeployed.

"The impact for children, young people and parents versus the commissioners will be difficult so when Ofsted and the CQC come back they'll be looking to see what parents have seen that is different since the last time they were with us.

"We will know as professionals what the difference is to us because we would have been through the joint commissioning process and would have started to commission services.

"But that needs to have started to have a direct impact on children and young people to make things better for them and it's a tight time scale for that to happen."