The EHC plan has been finalised and we still disagree with the description of our son's needs in section B and the lack of appropriate provision in section F of the final EHC plan...

...The provision in section F is really vague and there is an appendix to the EHC plan titled ‘steps to achieving outcomes’ which lists all the special educational provision.

Some local authorities (LAs) create additional sections to education, health and care (EHC) plans despite the law being clear that the statutory sections are A to K. While it is not strictly unlawful for LAs to add additional sections, it can be confusing and misleading. It is, however, unlawful for your LA to specify special educational provision anywhere other than section F of the EHC plan. 

The EHC plan must contain all of the sections required in law. Any additional sections the LA adds will not have any legal effect, so it is important to ensure all of the special educational provision your son needs is properly specified in section F and is not left to be determined in a section which has no legal status. You will not be able to force the LA to secure the special educational provision unless it is specified in section F. The law says section B of the EHC plan must specify all of your child’s special educational needs (SEN) and section F must specify all of the required special educational provision to meet those SEN. 

Our pages on what an EHC plan should contain have more helpful information. You can also use our EHC plan checklist to check whether your draft EHC plan complies with how the law says it should be set out. 

To make changes to your final EHC plan, you will need to appeal to the SEND Tribunal. It is important that you do not miss your deadline for appealing, which is 2 months from the date of the final EHC plan or 1 month from the date of the mediation certificate, whichever date is the latest. You can find lots of helpful information on our pages about appealing to the SEND Tribunal.

Getting the EHC plan right now will be crucial to making sure that your child receives the special educational provision they need in the future. It will be difficult for the LA to justify, and defend, specifying provision in a non-statutory section of the EHC plan and refusing to specify it in section F.