Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of children and young people who were waiting for an Education, Health and Care Plan decision after (a) less than six months, (b) six months to a year, (c) one to two years, (d) two to three years, (e) three to four years, (f) four to five years and (g) more than five years in the latest period for which data is available, broken down by local authority.

The department publishes official statistics on Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans annually, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans. This includes data at local authority level on the rate of EHC plans issued within the deadline of 20 weeks.

The attached table contains details of assessments in 2023 by local authority and by the duration, in days, between the date of the request for assessment and the date of the assessment outcome. This includes those for whom a plan was issued and those with the decision not to issue a plan, but excludes cases where the assessment was withdrawn.

The person-level data collection on EHC plans is in its second year. As a result, we expect the quality of data returns to improve over time, as the collection becomes established. In particular, the recording of the dates of the assessment request and the assessment outcome is subject to data quality issues, which become especially prominent when looking at a low level of granularity. For this reason, cases over two years have been aggregated, and where the date of request is missing or was recorded after the outcome date, this is marked in the table as ‘not available’. The department continues to work with local authorities in understanding and improving the data collection.