Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help support local authorities to meet the legal deadline to provide an education, health and care plan.

Every child deserves the opportunity to achieve and thrive but, at the moment, far from every child is being given that chance. The current special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision system has lost the confidence of families and children with SEND are being failed on every measure. The department is planning to work with the teachers, parents, children, therapists and councils that for so long have been trying so hard but have been set up to fail by a broken system. This work forms part of the government’s Opportunity Mission, which will break the unfair link between background and opportunity. This begins with giving every child, including those with SEND, the best start in life.

The department wants to ensure that, where required, education, health and care (EHC) plan assessments are progressed promptly and, if needed, plans are issued as quickly as possible so that children and young people can access the support they need.

The department publishes annual data from the SEN2 survey in relation to the processes associated with an EHC plan, including the timeliness of assessments and where agreed, the issuing of an EHC plan. The department closely monitors the information from the annual SEN2 data release and uses it to inform discussions with local areas.

Local authorities identified as having issues with EHC plan timeliness are subject to additional monitoring by the department who work with the specific local authority. Where we have concerns about the local authority’s capacity to make the required improvements, we have secured specialist SEND Advisor support to help identify the barriers to EHC plan process timeliness and put in place practical plans for recovery.

We know that local authorities have been impacted by increased demand for EHC plans and workforce capacity to meet this demand, so more efficient and effective service delivery, alongside communication with schools and families, is central to the recovery.

When inspections indicate that there are significant concerns with local authority performance, the department will intervene directly. This may mean issuing an Improvement Notice, Statutory Direction and/or appointing a commissioner, the deployment of which is considered on a case-by-case basis. We also provide support and challenge, for example from SEND Improvement Advisers and Sector Led Improvement Partners, to address the challenges local authorities face and improve services for children.