Once a final education, health and care (EHC) plan has been produced, your  child (or you, as a young person) is legally entitled to the special educational provision set out in that plan. Your Local Authority (LA) must ensure that all of the provision is in place on the date when the final EHC plan is issued.

Your LA must first have issued a draft EHC plan and consulted with you about its contents. If you requested that a particular school, college or other institution was named in the EHC plan, your LA had a duty to consult with that institution (unless your request was for a wholly independent setting – if you’re not sure, check our section about different types of school).

The final EHC plan must be issued within a maximum of 20 weeks from the request for an EHC needs assessment. This is set out in Regulation 13(2) of The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. If your  LA does not send you the final EHC plan within this time frame, you can use our model letter to complain.

The final EHC plan can only differ from the draft as a result of any representations (that is, comments or requests for changes) made by you.  If the LA wants to make any other changes, it must re-issue the draft and ask you for for your comments again, but it cannot extend the deadline beyond the 20 week maximum.

A final EHC plan will name the type of school, college or other institution you/your child will attend, and it will normally also have the name of the setting itself. If a school, college or other institution is named in an EHC plan, it must admit you/your child (meaning it must allow you/your child to attend) and put the educational provision in the EHC plan into place. This is true even if the school or college disagreed with you/your child being placed with them (unless the setting is wholly independent).

When a final EHC plan is issued, you have a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal if you are unhappy about any of the following:

• the description of your/your child’s special educational needs
• the special educational provision specified in the EHC plan
• the name/type of school or college in the EHC plan, and/or
• the fact that no school/college is named.

All of these elements can be appealed either together or on their own.

If you are appealing about one or more of the educational elements of the EHC plan, you can also appeal against the sections which deal with health and social care at the same time. You can read more about how to challenge the health and social care parts of an EHC plan in the guidance issued by the SEND Tribunal.

You can also take part in mediation as a way of resolving disagreements about any of the sections of the EHC plan (not just those listed above).

You can take a look at our pages about appealing to the SEND Tribunal for more information.

 

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