An EHC plan is a legal document which sets out a child or young person’s special educational needs and the special educational provision they are entitled to receive to meet them. If a child or young person with an EHC plan also has health and/or social care needs, these needs and the support to meet them should be set out in their EHC plan too.

If you are unhappy about something to do with an EHC plan, the right action to take depends on your situation.

An EHC needs assessment or EHC plan has been refused

If the local authority (LA) has refused to carry out an EHC needs assessment or to issue an EHC plan, you should consider mediation and/or appealing to the SEND Tribunal.

Special educational provision is not being made

If your child or young person already has an EHC plan, the special educational provision in section F is clearly written but isn’t being provided, then you need to raise this with your LA  (whether you should complain or start a process called judicial review depends on how urgent the situation is).

Health care provision is not being made

If your child or young person has health care provision clearly set out in section G of their EHC plan but this is not being provided, then you need to raise this with the relevant health body. This body is likely to be your local integrated care board (ICB).

Whether you should complain to your health body or start a process called judicial review depends on how urgent the situation is. If you decide to complain, you should check your LA’s Local Offer for details of complaints procedures. This should include details on how to complain about missing health care provision and who to complain to.

Social care provision is not being made

If your child or young person has an EHC plan and it has social care provision clearly set out in sections H1 or H2 but your LA is not delivering it (through its social care team), you should  raise this with your LA. Whether you should complain or start a process called judicial review depends on how urgent the situation is.

You are unhappy with what the EHC plan says

If your child or young person already has an EHC plan, but you or the young person are unhappy with what it says or the placement named in it, you have options. 

What to do depends on how long ago your LA issued the EHC plan or made a particular decision.

If within the last two months, the EHC plan was:

• issued for the first time 
• amended (changed), or 
• reviewed and your LA said its decision was not to change it or it’s decided to cease (stop) the EHC plan, 

then you can try mediation and/or if you are within the appeal deadline, appeal to the SEND Tribunal about the contents of the plan. This includes asking for the school, college or other setting named in the EHC plan to be changed. 

The appeal deadline is two months from the date on the LA’s decision letter or the letter enclosing the final EHC plan, or one month from the date on a mediation certificate, whichever is the later. The deadline is different if this date would fall in August or the Christmas period.

If you are outside the above time period, then you can:

• Ask the SEND Tribunal to accept your appeal even though its late – make sure you explain why you couldn’t appeal in time and mention if the LA’s decision letter didn’t include everything it has to.
• Ask for the EHC plan to be changed at an annual review, or if your next annual review is not for some time then you could ask for an early review. If the LA refuses to amend it following a review then you can mediate and/or appeal to the SEND Tribunal.
• If you think a complete set of new evidence is needed in order for the EHC plan to be accurate, you could ask for a re-assessment – this means the LA would carry out a new EHC needs assessment so will take a long time and there may be other ways to get the evidence you need more quickly. If the LA refuses to carry out a re-assessment you can mediate/appeal its decision not to do this to the SEND Tribunal. (In this type of appeal the SEND Tribunal cannot order the LA to change the EHC plan, if the appeal was successful it would order the LA to complete a re-assessment.)

If you can’t find the answer to your question in any of the links above, you can book an appointment to speak with us.