We have received our daughter’s draft EHC plan and we are not happy with the way her needs have been described in Section B. What can we do?

All it says is that she is a friendly and playful little girl (which we already knew) with ‘a general delay with her learning’. In fact, she has a specific problem with reading and writing. In other areas her development is fine. What can we do?

It is important to make sure section B of your child’s education, health and care (EHC) plan identifies and accurately describes all of her special educational needs (SEN). This is because, in section F of the EHC plan, your local authority (LA) must specify special educational provision to meet each and every one of the special educational needs identified in section B. This means that if section B fails to mention one of your child‘s needs, or doesn’t describe her needs properly, she may not get the special educational provision she requires. If you are not happy with your draft EHC plan, it is vital to check whether you need to request to change section F as well as section B. 

After receiving your draft EHC plan, you will have at least 15 days to write to your LA and give your views about the contents of the EHC plan. You can use our template letter to help you with this if you wish. Alternatively, if you want to, you can ask for a meeting to discuss the draft (your LA must meet with you if you make a request for it to do so). There is more information on our pages about what to do when you receive the draft EHC plan. 

You should first read through all of the professional advice which you will have received along with the draft EHC plan. They may contain more specific descriptions of your daughter’s learning difficulties than the one contained in Section B of the EHC plan. 

If you agree with the descriptions of your daughter’s needs in the advice, then in your written representations and/or at your meeting with the LA, you should ask that the draft EHC plan is amended to include the specific descriptions of her needs as they appear in the professional advice. You are not looking for your LA to copy long paragraphs from the professional advice, but to include accurate descriptions of all identified SEN. You can remind your LA officer that in law, section B of the EHC plan must include all of the needs identified during your daughter’s EHC needs assessment. 

There have been a large number of cases which have confirmed this and our page on what an EHC plan should contain has more information. You can also use IPSEA’s EHC plan checklist to check whether your draft EHC plan complies with how the law says it must be set out. 

If you disagree with the way your daughter’s needs are described in the professional reports, you should consider flagging this up with the advice giver directly. Our page on what happens in an EHC needs assessment has information on what advice must be provided during an assessment. If you do not feel the EHC needs assessment was carried out properly, you can take action. Our page on taking action when an EHC needs assessment is not carried out properly contains more information on how to do this.  

When you ask your LA to amend the EHC plan, give your LA officer a copy of what it is you want the EHC plan to say in section B (and section F, if necessary). Prepare this before your meeting if you are having one. Leave a copy with your LA officer and keep one for yourself. 

If your LA finalises the EHC plan as it was originally drafted, without making your requested changes, you can appeal to the SEND Tribunal. The deadline for appealing is two months from the date of the final EHC plan or one month from the date of the mediation certificate, whichever date falls the latest. You can find out more on our pages about appealing to the SEND Tribunal.