Should my child’s annual review still take place whilst I am appealing the contents of the EHC plan?

Yes.

In the case of appeals about the contents of EHC plans, it is possible that an annual review will take place before the appeal is concluded. This is because an annual review must take place within 12 months of the last review, or of the date the EHC plan was first issued, and this is not affected by an ongoing appeal.

The annual review could be an opportunity to try and resolve some of the issues in dispute. If your LA issues a new amended EHC plan after the annual review, this new plan is valid and enforceable and replaces the plan that has been appealed. If there are still parts of the EHC plan that you are unhappy with, in most types of appeal, you should ask the SEND Tribunal if the new plan can be treated as a working document in the current appeal, rather than registering a new appeal. The SEND Tribunal may decide that you should submit a new appeal and ask for the appeals to be consolidated (joined together), so be careful not to miss your deadline for obtaining a mediation certificate and appealing.

However, the SEND Tribunal has told us that if the newly amended EHC plan has been issued following a phase transfer review, it will not allow the new EHC plan to be treated as the working document in an ongoing appeal. Instead, you should:

•  obtain a mediation certificate and submit a new appeal
• flag on your appeal for that this is a “phase transfer appeal”, and
• ask for the appeal to be prioritised because of this

Please see our information on working documents for more information.