How to Apply for an EHCP: Step by Step

Everything about how to apply for an EHCP sounds harder than it is. There is no national application form, no fee, no referral requirement and no need for a diagnosis. You write to your local authority and ask it to carry out an education, health and care needs assessment. That letter is the application, and the day the council receives it is day one of a twenty-week statutory clock.

What is genuinely hard is the evidence, the waiting and the refusals. Councils are dealing with unprecedented volume: 718,800 children and young people in England had a plan at the January 2026 census, 12.5 per cent up on the year before, with 110,700 new plans issued during 2025. Knowing the deadlines they are bound by is the single most useful thing a parent can bring to the process. If you are not yet sure what a plan contains, start with EHCPs explained and come back.

Step 1: Check you are asking for the right thing

An EHC needs assessment is for a child whose special educational needs are more than a school can reasonably meet from its own delegated budget through SEN support. 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 in accordance with a plan. Note the word "may" twice. It is a deliberately low threshold for getting an assessment, and councils routinely apply a higher one.

Before you request, it helps to have tried SEN support and be able to show it has not been enough. That is not a legal requirement and a council cannot lawfully insist on it, but the evidence it generates is exactly what an assessment decision turns on.

Step 2: Write the request

Email the SEN team at your local authority. Most councils publish a form; you can use it, but a letter is equally valid and often better because it is not constrained by their boxes. Include:

• Your child's full name, date of birth, address and current school or setting.
• A clear sentence: "I am requesting an EHC needs assessment under section 36 of the Children and Families Act 2014."
• A short account of the difficulties, organised by area of need: communication and interaction, cognition and learning, social, emotional and mental health, and sensory or physical.
• What the school has already put in place and why it is not working.
• A list of the professionals involved.

Two pages is enough. Ask for written acknowledgement and note the date, because every subsequent deadline runs from it.

Step 3: Send the evidence that actually counts

Councils make the decision on paper, so the paper matters. The strongest bundle is short and specific:

• School SEN support plans, provision maps and review records showing the graduated approach of assess, plan, do, review.
• Recent school reports and any data showing progress falling behind peers.
• Attendance records, particularly if anxiety is keeping your child out of school.
• Reports from a paediatrician, speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, educational psychologist or CAMHS.
• Your own record: a fortnight of dated notes on what happens before school, after school and at bedtime is more persuasive than a general description.

Do not wait for an outstanding report before submitting. You can send it in later, and the clock is more valuable than the completeness of the first bundle.

Step 4: The six-week decision

By the end of week six the council must decide whether to carry out the assessment and tell you. If it agrees, the assessment starts and it gathers advice from education, health and care professionals, from you, and from your child.

If it refuses, you get a decision letter with appeal rights on it. Do not treat that as the end. Refusal-to-assess is one of the most commonly overturned decisions at tribunal, and a large share of appeals are conceded by councils before the hearing.

Step 5: Draft plan and school preference

If the council decides to issue a plan, it must tell you by the end of week sixteen and send you a draft. You then have fifteen days to comment and to name the school you want. The draft you receive will have section I, the named school, left blank; naming your preference is a separate right, and the council must consult the school you name.

Read section B (needs), section F (special educational provision) and section I (placement) most carefully. Section F is the enforceable part: provision written there must be delivered. Wording like "access to" or "opportunities for" is not enforceable. Ask for quantified, specific provision: how much, how often, delivered by whom.

Step 6: The final plan at twenty weeks

The final plan must be issued within twenty weeks of the original request. A small set of exceptions in the regulations can extend that, for example where the setting is closed for four weeks or more, but a shortage of educational psychologists is not one of them, however commonly it is offered as a reason.

Once the final plan lands, a fresh two-month appeal window opens on its contents. That is when you challenge weak wording in section F or the wrong school in section I.

If the council says no, or misses a deadline

You have two months from the date of the decision letter to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability), or one month from a mediation certificate if that falls later. You must contact a mediation adviser and get the certificate before registering the appeal, but you are not obliged to attend mediation.

Where the council simply misses a deadline, the route is different: chase in writing, then use the council's formal complaints procedure, then the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Delay is maladministration rather than an appealable decision, and the Ombudsman regularly orders remedy payments for it.

Free, expert advice is available. IPSEA publishes model request letters and runs an advice line, and the statutory rules councils must follow are in the government's SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years. For the wider admissions picture, see our school admissions guide or browse everything from the Schools Insight homepage.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I apply for an EHCP?

You write to your local authority asking it to carry out an EHC needs assessment. There is no national form and you do not need the school's permission, a diagnosis or a professional's referral. Send it by email to the council's SEN team, ask for written acknowledgement, and keep the date, because the twenty-week clock starts the day the council receives it.

Who can request an EHC needs assessment?

A parent, a young person aged 16 to 25 in their own right, or the school, college or nursery on the child's behalf. Anyone else with a concern, including a health visitor, GP or family friend, can also bring a child to the council's attention. A parent request carries exactly the same legal weight as a school request.

How long does an EHCP take from application?

Twenty weeks from the day the council receives the request to the day the final plan is issued. Within that, the council has six weeks to decide whether to assess, and by week sixteen it must tell you whether it will issue a plan. You then get fifteen days to comment on the draft. A limited set of exceptions in the regulations can extend it, for example a school holiday of four weeks or more.

What evidence should I send with an EHCP request?

A short covering letter setting out why your child's needs cannot be met from the school's own resources, plus anything that shows the gap: school reports and SEN support plans, records of the graduated approach, attendance data, letters from paediatricians, speech and language or occupational therapists, CAMHS, and your own diary of what happens at home. Two well-chosen professional reports beat twenty pages of narrative.

What 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), or one month from the date of a mediation certificate if that is later. You must contact a mediation adviser and obtain a certificate before you can register the appeal, though you do not have to go through with mediation itself. Refusal-to-assess appeals are among the most commonly successful, so a no at week six is not the end of it.

Do I need a diagnosis to apply for an EHCP?

No. The legal test is about need and provision, not labels. A council cannot lawfully refuse to assess because a child is waiting for an autism or ADHD assessment, and a diagnosis on its own does not entitle a child to a plan. What matters is evidence that the child has special educational needs and that it may be necessary for provision to be made through a plan.