SEND: Two in five EHCP decisions took more than 6 months

Nearly two in five decisions on education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for pupils with SEND took more than six months last year, new data reveals. 

The government has for the first time released data on how long it took councils to decide on EHCPs, which have soared 140 per cent in 10 years. 

It came in the week of three parliamentary debates on the broken SEND system, increasing pressure on the new ministerial team to come up with a solution. 

The Department for Education currently publishes the rates at which councils issue EHCPs within the deadline of 20 weeks.

This stood at 50.3 per cent in 2023. Councils also have 16 weeks to let families know if they decide not to issue a plan. 

The new data shows 37 per cent of about 90,000 decisions made by councils in 2023 took more than six months. Nearly 6 per cent – about 5,000 – took more than a year. 

In Essex, 96.8 per cent took more than six months, of which 15.2 per cent took more than 12. The data collection is in its second year, with the DfE saying it expects the quality to “improve over time”. 

Catherine McKinnell, the schools minister, said the figures “show that children with special educational needs and disabilities and their families are often being left in limbo for far too long”. 

MPs told McKinnell about the desperate situations in their constituencies. 

Alistair Strathern, the Labour MP for Hitchin, said the stories of 100 young people “has truly broken my heart”.

“Devastatingly and particularly heartbreakingly, we heard from the parents of Alice who, after feeling isolated and alienated by the delays in getting the right support in place at school, felt that she had no option available other than to attempt to take her own life.

“What more damning indictment of our failure could there be?”

Sarah Dyke, the Liberal Democrat MP for Glastonbury and Somerton, told a Westminster Hall debate how Somerset council said “the lynchpin for the system failing has been the inability of mainstream education to cope with the sheer increase in demand within such a short time”. 

McKinnell said the government would work with parents, schools, councils and expert staff to ensure their approach “is fully planned and delivered”. 

It would look at the national funding formula and “the way in which the high-needs funding allocated to local authorities is used. 

“We need to take time, if there are any changes to that formula, to ensure that we consider the impact and get it right.”