Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are vital support packages for children and young adults with special educational needs and disabilities. They ensure young people receive the all-round support they need in their education setting.
Top-tier Council’s (Counties, Unitary, MBCs and LBCs) have a legal duty to provide EHCPs for children and young people in their authority area – working with other partners such as schools and health care providers. There is a statutory obligation for councils to produce an EHCP within 20 weeks of it being formally requested and required.
Last year only half of EHCPs across England were produced on time. Performance across local authorities varies significantly with some council’s failing to meet their duty in the vast majority of cases.
You can check your council’s performance here.
The number of EHCP requests has increased year on year since they were introduced in 2014. Last year the number of EHCP requests increased by 20% on the previous year and there are now over 600,000 in place across England. The number of new plans which started in 2023 increased by over 25% compared from 2022. You can find official stats here.
The demand has put enormous pressure on councils to produce EHCPs in a timely fashion. As demand has risen funding has stagnated meaning resources are stretched. EHCPs can cost thousands of pounds to produce and resource, and significant partnership work is required between councils, schools and the NHS. Children and families are being left waiting for the support they need.
98% of the 13,000+ appeals against EHCP decisions in the last year were successful, showing significant failures in the decision making process.
We have produced a set of resources to help you campaign for better EHCP preparation in your local area – backing the Lib Dem campaign for additional funding from Government to support the timely preparation of EHCPs and also calling for better scrutiny of the EHCP preparation process (for instance communication with families, partnership working etc).
The resources would suit a Lib Dem group in opposition holding the administration to account and taking a lead on the issue. However there is also opportunity for Lib Dem administrations performing above the national average to celebrate success – for instance through a council question.