COUNTY council and health authorities have pledged to take action after criticism from inspectors.

The Ofsted and Care Quality Commission inspection, carried out in November, revealed several areas of County Hall’s special educational needs and disability (SEND) service had weaknesses.

These included inaccurate understanding of the area, lack of strategic leadership and no effective strategy to improve outcomes of children with disabilities.

However the inspection revealed the service was effective in identifying children and young people’s special educational needs and disabilities.

To address the problems, a Lancashire SEND partnership has been formed involving agencies including East Lancashire CCG and Lancashire County Council to improve services.

The partnership said it has produced an action plan, made some ‘significant changes’ to improve key areas of services and recruited new people to the team.

It has apologised to parents and carers for any ‘alarm’ caused by the report.

Susie Charles, cabinet member for children, young people and schools, said: "Ofsted has now approved our partnership Written Statement of Action (WSoA) which outlines how we will work together to drive improvement.

"We are fully committed to ensuring that children and young people in Lancashire with SEND achieve the very best outcomes and their parents and carers have a positive experience when using our services.

"We are confident that by working in partnership we will address all the areas of concern that were identified during inspection."