An education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment is an assessment of the education, health care and social care needs of a child or young person. 

Who will carry out the assessment?

Your local authority (LA) will carry out the assessment. During the assessment, your LA must seek information and advice on: 

•        your child or young person’s needs
•        the provision required to meet those needs, and 
•        the outcomes expected to be achieved by your child or young person.

This advice must come from a range of different people, set out below.

Your LA has the legal duty to carry out the assessment process. It cannot ask a school or college to carry out the assessment for it, and it cannot require the school or college to pay for any part of the assessment (such as the educational psychologist’s report).

Who should be asked for advice?

The list of people your LA must get advice and information from during an assessment is set out in Regulation 6(1) of The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 (The SEND Regulations 2014):

a.   you, as your child’s parent or as a young person

b.   educational advice (usually from the head teacher or principal)

c.   medical advice and information from a health care professional

d.   psychological advice and information from an educational psychologist

e.   advice and information in relation to social care

f.    advice and information from any other person the local authority thinks appropriate

g.   where your child (or you as a young person) is in or beyond year 9, advice and information in relation to provision to assist your child/you in preparation for adulthood and independent living, and

h.    advice and information from any person you reasonably request that the local authority seek advice from.

The LA is legally required to get all of this information as a minimum. We have template letters which you can use to ask for information from the school and LA which may help show that an EHC plan is necessary.

If your child (or you, as a young person) is hearing impaired and/or visually impaired the educational advice must be given after consultation with a suitably qualified person. This is set out in SEND Regulation 6(2).

If the child or young person’s parent is serving in the armed forces, the LA has to get educational information from the Ministry of Defence too. This is set out in SEND Regulation 6(1)(b)(iv). 

Your LA should consider whether a full social care assessment or health assessment is also needed. There is some debate as to whether health and social care assessments are automatically triggered when a request for an EHC needs assessment is made. In practice, it is best to ask for social care and health assessments separately to ensure the request is received.

Who provides the educational advice when a child or young person is not in school or college? 

Can parents or young people ask for advice from a particular person?

You can ask your LA to seek advice from anyone within education, health or social care, as long as it is a reasonable request, as set out in SEND Regulation 6(1)(h). This could include a speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, physiotherapist or someone from CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services).

A request would be considered reasonable where, for example, a child or young person has been identified as needing an assessment already and they are on a waiting list, or where the school, college or other professional has said this advice may be needed.

You can ask your LA to get advice from a particular type of professional (such as an occupational therapist with training in sensory processing difficulties), but it would not normally be reasonable to ask for advice from a named individual.

Equally, it’s not likely to be reasonable for you to request that information under SEND Regulations 6(1)(a)-(g) is sought from a named individual (such as an independent educational psychologist) rather than from the one proposed by the LA.

It is best to request in writing (either in a letter or an email) that a particular professional is approached, so that you have a record of your request. You can use our template letter to do this.

Your LA must consider the individual circumstances of your request and decide whether it is reasonable. It must not apply blanket rules, for example that it will not seek advice from a particular service unless the child or young person is already known to them.

If your LA does not agree to your request, you can take action by using our template letter.

What if there are existing reports or advice?

Your LA does not have to seek new advice where the same type of advice has  already been provided for any purpose – for example, if there is already a recent educational psychologist’s report. However, this exception will only apply if you, the person providing that advice and the LA are all satisfied that the existing advice is sufficient. Previous advice can only be sufficient for an EHC needs assessment if it is relatively up to date and accurately reflects your child/your’s current needs, the provision required to meet those needs, and the outcomes which this provision will aim to achieve. As a rough guide, an educational psychologist’s report which is over two years old will not usually be recent enough to be useful, but this will always depend on individual circumstances.

Can I submit my own reports?

Yes. If you already have your own advice and reports, these can be submitted as part of your own advice (remember that SEND Regulation 6(1)(a) says the LA must ask for your advice) to ensure that they form part of the assessment process. This evidence must then be considered when the LA makes its decision. 

We are aware that some LAs say they cannot consider private reports. This is not true. SEND Regulation 7(b) says that the LA must consider all information provided by or at the request of a child, parent or young person. 

Your LA must send copies of your advice and information to all the other people from whom advice and information is being sought. This is set out in SEND Regulation 6(3).

What should the advice contain?

Paragraph 9.51 of the SEND Code of Practice 2015 (the Code) says the advice should  be clear, accessible and specific. In particular, it should address your/ your child’s needs, the special educational provision required to meet those needs, and the outcomes which this provision will aim to achieve. LAs should not have policies stopping professionals from giving advice on the amount of provision required.

There is guidance for educational psychologists involved in EHC needs assessments, which makes clear that:

• their input must focus on the needs of the child or young person, be independent, and not be driven by financial or other constraints (paragraph 3.19)
• their advice should not be influenced by consideration of specific educational settings (paragraph 3.22)
• provision recommendations should be clear and specific enough so there can be agreement about whether or not they are being followed (paragraph 3.24)
• best practice would be to give robust advice leading to clear, specific and quantifiable provision (paragraph 3.27) and guidance should be provided in terms of ‘no less than’, ‘at least’ or ‘always’ (paragraph 3.28), and
• the expert should be given enough time and resources to provide advice.

The Code also says that the educational psychologist should consult any other psychologists known to be involved with your child or young person (paragraph 9.49). This will include for example a clinical psychologist. If they don’t do this, you should ask that they do.

When seeking advice and information in relation to social care, it is common for LAs to receive a response from social care stating “not known to this service”. It is important to remember your LA must get information and advice from the list of professionals contained in SEND Regulation 6(1), which covers your/ your child’s needs, provision and outcomes. A response stating “not known to this service” is not going to fulfil this duty. If you don’t want support from social care you may be content with this, but if you do require support you should insist on a fuller response. 

If you make a request under SEND Regulation 6(1)(h) for advice from a speech and language therapist, it will be helpful for you to know that guidance from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists makes clear advice should be based on an up-to-date comprehensive assessment of all areas of communication functioning, and that provision should be clearly specified and quantified, and should relate directly to the needs of the child or young person, not to the level of services available (see paragraph 9.4).

In addition to guidance for specific professionals, many health care professionals are bound by the standards set out by the Health and Care Professions Council. These standards can be relevant when they are providing advice as part of an EHC needs assessment. If a registered professional (such as an occupational therapist or speech and language therapist) identifies a special educational provision your child or young person needs, then states that a member of school staff, such as a teaching assistant, can deliver that provision, it may be helpful to refer to paragraph 4.1 of the standards. This states that professionals can only delegate work to people who have ‘the knowledge, skills and experience needed to carry it out safely and effectively’ and the professional must ‘continue to provide appropriate supervision and support to those they delegate work to’. This appears to imply that if your child’s provision is to be delivered by somebody other than the health care professional who identified the need for it, there should also be an explanation of how this person will be trained and supported, and the arrangements for supervision. 

If you feel the EHC needs assessment is not being carried out properly, you can use our template letter to take action. This includes where the advice you receive does not specify your/your child’s needs, provision and outcomes. Your LA should then go back to the professional concerned and ask them for advice which complies with SEND Regulation 6(1) and the relevant guidance.

How should your LA involve you and your child?

As well as the duties relating to advice and information, your LA must:

• consult with you and your child.  It must take into account your views, wishes and feelings
• consider any information that you provide 
• engage you and your child and ensure that you are able to participate in decisions, and
• minimise disruption for you and your family.

This is set out in SEND Regulation 7.

Your LA must also consider whether you need any information, advice and support, so that you are able to fully take part in the EHC needs assessment. If you do need help, then this must be provided. This is set out in SEND Regulation 9.

How long will this take?

Certain people and bodies (such as a local NHS service) asked for information and advice must respond within six weeks. This is set out in SEND Regulation 8(1) and paragraph 9.52 of the Code. The only exceptions to this are if:

• during that six week period, exceptional circumstances affect you or your child
• you or your child are away for a continuous period of not less than four weeks, or
• you fail to keep an appointment for an examination or a test.

Your LA must either decide not to issue an EHC plan within 16 weeks of the date your EHC needs assessment request was received, or (if a plan is to be issued) to issue a final EHC plan within 20 weeks of that date. These are legal duties which must be complied with. There are a few minor exceptions to these deadlines, but they cannot be avoided because there is a long waiting list or because there are staffing shortages. Resource issues is not one of these exceptions.

This means your LA needs to act in a timely manner when making requests for advice from any person or body, and ensure it has obtained all the advice required to allow it to take such action by the relevant legal deadline.

If your LA is genuinely unable to get one of the necessary pieces of advice during the time frame in its usual way, it should consider alternative ways of getting the advice (for example, getting an independent report).

Following an EHC needs assessment, when does my LA have to issue an EHC plan?

Your LA must decide whether the advice and information gathered during the EHC needs assessment shows that it's necessary for your child or young person to have an EHC plan. If it does, then your LA must issue an EHC plan. This is set out in section 37(1) Children and Families Act 2014. 

Please see our when does my LA have to issue an EHC plan page for more information on this.

For a summary, see our EHC needs assessment to an EHC plan timeline.

Download: Timeline for EHC needs assessment to an EHC plan (PDF)

Download: Timeline for EHC needs assessment to an EHC plan (Word)

If you haven’t been able to find the answer to your question on this page, look at our FAQs or book an appointment to speak with us.