I am a young person due to move from secondary school to post-16, but the LA hasn’t issued the amended EHC plan or started the review. What does the LA need to do?

Local authorities (LAs) have a legal duty to review and amend an EHC plan when a child or young person transfers from one phase of education to another.

For a transfer from secondary school to post-16, the annual review must be completed by 31 March in the year of transfer. The process your LA must follow is:

Information must be gathered from you as well as from professionals about the EHC plan, and then circulated two weeks before the annual review meeting. You must receive at least two weeks’ notice of the review meeting.
An annual review meeting must take place to discuss the EHC plan.
After the meeting a report of what happened must be written and sent to everyone who went to the meeting or provided information to be discussed.
Within four weeks of the meeting, your LA must tell you of its decision to maintain, amend or cease the EHC plan. At phase transfer it will need to be amended to name the new placement (or type). The LA must send you details of the changes it plans to make to the EHC plan at the same time. You can use our template letter to make comments on the proposed amendments.
You will be able to request the post-16 institution you want to attend. Your LA must agree to your request unless it’s entirely independent/private or one of the exceptions set out in the law applies.
Your LA must then finalise the EHC plan within eight weeks of the date it sent you the amendments.

In order for the EHC plan to be amended and finalised by 31 March, discussions about transfer need to begin once school re-opens after the Christmas break, in the year of the transfer, to allow plenty of time for the review and amendment process to happen. As you are already a young person, it sounds like the LA didn’t do this in time. You can use our template letter to make a complaint and request the review meeting is held without delay. If the LA has not amended your EHC plan to name your post-16 placement by the time you should start, it must still make sure you receive all the special educational provision in your EHC plan.

If your LA does not name the place you want in the final EHC plan, you can appeal to the SEND Tribunal.