Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether there has been a reduction in Education Health Care Plans at any of the Local Authorities in Tranche 1 and 2 of the Delivering Better Value in SEND Programme.

The department’s Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme has no targets to reduce the number of new Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans. Decisions about individual children and young people and whether they require EHC plans must be made on an individual basis, following the processes set out in the Children and Families Act 2014. The department is protecting every parent and family’s existing legal right to an EHC plan when they need one, and that will not change.

The DBV programme is part of the wider reform work set out in detail in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan. DBV aims to put the SEND system on a more sustainable footing by funding system transformation in up to 55 local authorities with high dedicated schools grant deficits. It does so by providing diagnostic support to each local authority to engage with its stakeholders and identify opportunities to improve services and meet children’s needs at an early stage and with the right level of support.