The annual review is the statutory process of looking at the needs, provision and outcomes specified in an EHC plan, and deciding whether these need to change. Understanding what an EHC plan should contain will help you prepare for an annual review. 

Your local authority (LA) must complete the first review of your child’s EHC plan within 12 months of the EHC plan being finalised. Subsequent reviews must be completed within 12 months of the previous review. If you are a young person with an EHC plan, then your LA must comply with the same deadlines and carry out the same process set out below.

The following steps must take place in an annual review:

• Your LA must consult with you (and with the school or institution being attended if there is one) about the EHC plan, and take account of  your views, wishes and feelings.
• An annual review meeting must take place to discuss the EHC plan.
• Information must be gathered from you as well as from professionals about the EHC plan, and then circulated two weeks before the meeting.
• After the meeting a report of what happened must be written and sent to everyone who went to the meeting or provided information to be discussed.
• After the meeting the LA reviews the EHC plan.
• The LA must notify you of its decision within four weeks of the meeting.

All of these steps – not just the meeting – must be followed in order for an annual review to be completed.

Our annual review checklist contains further information on each of these steps. You can use this resource to check whether the necessary steps are being followed in your annual review.

If the process is not followed, then you can make a complaint.

 

If you haven’t been able to find the answer to your question on this page, see our FAQs.