Our daughter is 18. She wants to go to college next year but she is quite nervous about this, and has said she’d like to carry on getting the type of support she gets at school.

At a recent annual review meeting, the school said the local authority (LA) would take away her education, health and care (EHC) plan at the end of the year because she has now achieved all of the outcomes in Section E. The outcomes were set when she started secondary school and are very out of date. We don’t think this is fair but it has said these are the rules.

As described on our pages about what to do if the LA takes away your EHC plan, the LA can only cease to maintain an EHC plan where:

•  the LA is no longer responsible for the child or young person, or
• provision in the EHC plan is no longer necessary.

It does not sound like this is the situation here.

It is correct that the LA must consider whether the educational or training outcomes specified in the EHC plan have been achieved, when considering whether to cease an EHC plan for a young person who is aged over 18. However, this is just something it should take into account. The LA cannot cease the plan simply because the outcomes have (or have not) been achieved.

The outcomes should have been amended as your daughter got older so they were still relevant. See our pages on what an EHC plan should contain for more information about this.

Your daughter should get the EHC plan amended so that it is relevant and up to date. As well as ensuring the outcomes section kept up so date, it is very important for your daughter to ensure section B of her EHC plan accurately reflects her current special educational needs, and that section F specifies the special educational provision she currently requires. Our pages on annual review have further information on how to do this.

If the LA does decide to cease to maintain the EHC plan, or if it refuses to amend the plan so it is up to date, then your daughter will have a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal as well as a right to mediation.