EHCPs Explained: What an Education, Health and Care Plan Covers

An EHCP, an Education, Health and Care Plan, is the only document that makes a school legally obliged to deliver the support your child needs. That is the whole point of it. Everything else, the SEN support plan, the teaching assistant who is "usually" there, the promise of small group work, depends on goodwill and staffing. Section F of an EHCP does not.

Getting one is a twenty-week statutory process, and hundreds of thousands of families are going through it. As at the January 2026 census there were 718,800 children and young people with a plan in England, 12.5 per cent up on the year before and the biggest annual rise since plans replaced statements in 2014. This guide sets out what a plan actually contains, the deadlines the council has to meet, and what to do when it misses them.

EHCP or SEN support: which is which

Most children with special educational needs never need a plan. Schools are expected to meet needs from their own delegated budget through SEN support, the graduated approach of assess, plan, do, review set out in the SEND Code of Practice. Roughly one child in six in an English school is on SEN support.

An EHCP is for the smaller group whose needs are more than a school can reasonably meet on its own. The legal test in section 36 of the Children and Families Act 2014 is whether the child may have special educational needs and whether it may be necessary for provision to be made through a plan. That is a low bar for triggering an assessment, and it is deliberately low.

The 20-week timeline, week by week

The clock starts the day the council receives the request. Here is what has to happen inside it.

• Weeks 0 to 6. The council decides whether to carry out an EHC needs assessment and must tell you its decision by the end of week six. If it says no, that decision is appealable.
• Weeks 6 to 12. If it agrees, it gathers advice: from you, from the child or young person, from the school, from an educational psychologist, from health, from social care, and from anyone else it considers appropriate. Advice must be provided within six weeks of being requested.
• By week 16. The council decides whether to issue a plan. If it decides not to, that is again appealable.
• Weeks 16 to 20. A draft plan is sent to you with section I, the school, left blank. You have fifteen calendar days to comment and to ask for a particular school. The final plan must be issued by the end of week twenty.

The law allows limited exceptions, mostly around school holidays of at least four weeks and exceptional personal circumstances. Staff shortages and a backlog of educational psychology reports are not exceptions, however often they are offered as one.

What is actually in the plan

Plans run to lettered sections, and knowing which is which is the single most useful thing a parent can learn.

• Section A: the views, interests and aspirations of the child and family. Not legally binding, but it frames everything else.
• Section B: the child's special educational needs. Everything in B must have matching provision in F.
• Sections C and D: health and social care needs related to the SEN.
• Section E: outcomes sought.
• Section F: the special educational provision. This is the enforceable part. It should be specific and quantified: how many sessions, how long, delivered by whom, how often. "Access to speech and language therapy as required" is not adequate; "weekly 30-minute individual sessions delivered by a qualified speech and language therapist" is.
• Sections G, H1 and H2: health and social care provision.
• Section I: the name and type of school or setting.
• Section J: a personal budget, if one has been agreed.
• Section K: the advice and information gathered during the assessment.

When you get the draft, read B and F side by side. Every need in B should have something concrete in F answering it. A need with no matching provision is the most common and most fixable flaw in a draft plan, and the fifteen-day comment window is when to say so in writing.

Naming the school you want

Section I is where the plan turns into a place. You can ask for any maintained mainstream or special school, academy, free school, non-maintained special school, or further education institution. The council must name your preference unless it can show the school is unsuitable for the child, or that admitting them would be incompatible with the efficient education of other children or the efficient use of resources.

Cost alone is not a trump card: the council has to weigh it, not simply cite it. If you are choosing between settings, our guides on how to choose a school and what makes a good school cover the questions worth asking on a visit, and Ofsted reports explained covers how much weight to give an inspection judgement.

When the council misses the deadline

Missed deadlines are common, and the response depends on what has been missed.

1. No decision by week six, or no final plan by week twenty. Write to the SEN team citing the specific regulation and give a date. If nothing changes, complain formally through the council's corporate complaints process, and then to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which regularly finds fault and orders remedy payments for EHCP delay.
2. Refusal to assess, refusal to issue, or a plan you disagree with. These go to the SEND Tribunal, not the Ombudsman. You have two months from the decision letter, or one month from a mediation certificate, whichever is later.
3. Provision in the plan not being delivered. The council, not the school, is legally responsible for securing section F. Put it in writing to the council and, if it continues, judicial review or an Ombudsman complaint are the routes.

Mediation is a compulsory step only in the sense that you must contact an adviser and obtain a certificate before registering most appeals. You can decline the mediation itself and still get the certificate.

What to do first

If you think your child needs a plan, put the request in writing to the local authority's SEN team by email, date it, and keep the acknowledgement. Say that you are requesting an EHC needs assessment under section 36 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Include what has been tried already, what has not worked, and anything you have from professionals. You do not need the school to agree, and you do not need a diagnosis.

The statutory framework is the SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years, and the annual figures quoted here come from the Department for Education's Education, health and care plans statistics. Both are free to read and are what your council is working to.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an EHCP?

An Education, Health and Care Plan is a legal document issued by a local authority for a child or young person aged up to 25 whose special educational needs cannot be met from the resources a school normally has. It sets out their needs, the provision that must be put in place, and the school named for them. Unlike SEN support, the provision in section F of an EHCP is legally enforceable.

How long does an EHCP take?

Twenty weeks from the day the council receives the request for an EHC needs assessment to the day the final plan is issued. Within that, the council has six weeks to decide whether to assess and tell you, and it must then gather advice and, if it agrees to issue a plan, send you a draft to comment on for fifteen days. The Children and Families Act 2014 allows a small number of exceptions, for example school holidays of four weeks or more.

Who can request an EHC needs assessment?

A parent, the young person themselves if they are 16 or over, or the school or setting on the child's behalf. Anyone else with a concern, including a health visitor, GP, youth offending team or family friend, can also bring a child to the council's attention. You do not need the school's agreement to make a request, and you do not need a diagnosis.

What happens if the council refuses to assess?

You have two months from the date of the decision letter to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability). Before you can register the appeal you must contact a mediation adviser and get a certificate, though you are not obliged to go through with mediation. Refusal-to-assess appeals are among the most commonly successful, so a no at week six is not the end of it.

How many children have an EHCP?

718,800 children and young people in England had an EHCP as at the January 2026 census, 12.5 per cent more than in January 2025 and the largest year-on-year rise since plans were introduced in 2014. 110,700 new plans were issued during the 2025 calendar year, up 13.3 per cent on 2024. The scale of that growth is the main reason councils miss the 20-week deadline.

Does an EHCP guarantee a place at the school we want?

Not automatically, but it comes closer than anything else. You have the right to ask for a particular maintained school, academy, further education college or non-maintained special school to be named in section I, and the council must name it unless the school is unsuitable for the child's age, ability, aptitude or needs, or admitting them would be incompatible with the efficient education of others or the efficient use of resources. If the council names a different school, that is appealable.

Is an EHCP reviewed every year?

Yes. The council must review the plan at least every twelve months, and within three to six months for children under five. The annual review meeting is normally run by the school, and the council must tell you within four weeks of the meeting whether it intends to keep the plan as it is, amend it, or cease it. A decision to cease or to refuse to amend can be appealed.