Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help reduce waiting times for SEND assessments by local authorities in rural areas with fewer staff.

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.

Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have special educational needs that require an EHC plan. EHC plans must be issued within 20 weeks of the needs assessment commencing so that children and young people can access the support they need. In 2023, there were 138,200 initial requests for an EHC plan and 90,500 assessments took place. 50.3% of new EHC plans in 2023 were issued within 20 weeks.

The department knows that local authorities have seen an increase in the number of assessment requests and that more needs to be done to ensure that local areas deliver effective and timely services. This includes better communication with schools and families.

The department continues to monitor and work closely with local authorities that have issues with EHC plan timeliness. Where there are concerns about a local authority’s capacity to make the required improvements, we help the local authority to identify the barriers and put in place an effective recovery plan. This includes, where needed, securing specialist SEND Adviser support to help identify the barriers to EHC plan process timeliness and put in place practical plans for recovery.

Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out a full SEND inspection of Dorset local area in March 2024. Their published report found that the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND and the local area partnership is taking action where improvements are needed.

Dorset are not subject to formal intervention from the department or NHS England and the next full area SEND inspection by Ofsted and the CQC will be within approximately five years.