SEND: Could EHCPs be scrapped?

This month, widespread rumours circulated that ministers in England are considering changes to education, health, and care plans (EHCPs), which could limit their use to children in special schools.

This would mean that hundreds of thousands of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) would miss out on the legal document detailing the special educational provision a local authority must provide.

Obtaining an EHCP grants legal entitlements and protections, which can be enforced through an appeal to the SEND tribunal, judicial review or other means. An EHCP also provides parents or young people with a conditional right to choose their preferred school or college. Without one, schools have no legal duty to meet a child’s specific needs.

The news that they may be replaced caused widespread distress among parents already struggling to navigate the complex SEND system.

What are EHCPs and why do they matter?

An EHCP is a legal document for children and young people aged 0 to 25 who need additional special educational provision. It will identify educational, health and social needs and set out additional support to meet those needs.

The legal aspect is important, as plans are made and looked after according to rules set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.

• Further reading: New handbook to help parents make an effective EHCP

Obtaining an EHCP is currently seen as the only sure way to secure support. However, in England, it is also common for local authorities to issue vague, unclear, poorly written EHCPs. In many cases, the result is that children or young people do not receive the support they need, or sometimes, they receive no special support at all.

This means that families are forced to fight hard to ensure that their children receive the provision they are legally entitled to. If the language in the education plans is vague, enforcement of the plans becomes a daunting battle.

According to the latest statistics from the charity IPSEA, over 1.6 million pupils in England have special educational needs (SEN), while only 575,963 children and young people in England have an EHCP.

The number of EHCPs has increased by 140% since 2015, putting huge pressure on local councils. In 2024, the National Audit Office (NAO) reported that the system was financially unsustainable.

Where did the rumour come from?

At the Schools and Academies Show in London, Dame Christine Lenehan, the Department for Education’s strategic adviser on SEND, said the current EHCP system was unfit for purpose and discussions were ongoing about whether they should only apply to special school pupils.

She added that EHCPs were started in 2014 as a system for a very small group of children who actively needed the engagement of health, care and education to meet their outcomes. But most pupils with an EHCP in place “don’t need health and care, they need a really good, focused education”.

She said that the new reforms would change “the bureaucratic nightmare we seem to have got ourselves into, which is actually unhelpful and doesn’t deliver the outcomes for children that we want.”

How likely is it that this will happen?

Rumours about major SEND reforms have been circulating for some time, but there has been no formal government announcement or proposal yet.

School standards minister Catherine McKinnell confirmed to the Guardian newspaper last week that the current model was “not delivering” and said that officials were developing a new system for SEND support. However, she declined to rule out narrowing or replacing EHCPs altogether.

McKinnell added: “No decisions have been taken yet on how we deliver …. The change we want to see is just better support for children at the earliest stage possible. And clearly the system we’ve inherited is not delivering that.

“Even when families secure an EHCP, it doesn’t necessarily deliver the education that’s been identified … We’re listening to parents. We’re working on a new system. It’s not fixed yet.”

Why is a new SEND system needed?

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, although funding for pupils with SEND has risen by £4 billion over the past five years, it is still insufficient and has not kept pace with rising numbers and needs.

In fact, hundreds of local authorities have built up large deficits as a result, with debts totalling around £3.3 billion last year alone. The report also found that nearly 5% of schoolchildren now have an EHCP.

It followed a report from the National Audit Office that said, despite increased funding (58% over the past decade to £10.7 billion in 2024-25), the system is still not delivering better outcomes for children and young people or preventing local authorities from facing significant financial risks.

• Further reading: InFocus SEND issue

In a recent interview with Learning Disability Today, Catriona Moore, Policy Manager at IPSEA, said that the Children and Families Act did not envisage every child with SEND having an EHCP in the reformed system.

She added: “There has been an enormous rise in requests for EHCP assessment, followed by a massive increase in the number of plans. One reason is that the other half of the system isn’t currently working well enough. This is why all this talk about reducing reliance on statutory support worries me. When it’s this difficult to get it, even when it is statutory, what will happen when it is not?”

What can you do?

IPSEA is urging everyone who wants to protect children and young people’s right to special educational provision to write to their MP explaining why it matters to them. By contacting their MP, they say you can help ensure that the experiences of children and young people with SEND are recognised and heard as decisions are being shaped. They have produced a template that can be accessed here.

Special Needs Jungle, which has long championed the rights of children with SEND, has also created a petition asking for legal rights to assessment and support in education for children with SEND to be retained. The petition has over 70,000 signatures so far. It needs 100,000 to be debated in parliament.

• Further reading: What kind of government is “bold” enough to scrap statutory EHCPs from vulnerable children?

They said: “If the government wants to build a fantastic system where EHCPs are rarely ever needed, bring it on. In an ideal world, our schools would be sufficiently resourced and trained to offer immediate and effective support to every child who needs it, and we’d watch as the need for EHCPs gradually fell.

“This would be a long, careful program of change with both High Needs debt written off and a massive increase in school funding, ringfenced for SEND. Given that all of this is predicated on the need to save money, that seems beyond unlikely.”

Responses to the story

Tim Nicholls, Assistant Director of Policy, Research and Strategy at the National Autistic Society, said: “We, along with thousands of families, are terrified by rumours that the Government plans to take away Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans, which provide children the right to support.

“So many have to fight long battles to get even the most basic support for their children. The Government is simply getting it wrong – the problem isn’t EHC Plans, it’s insufficient support for the education, health and social care systems that have been buckling under pressure for decades.

“The Government must stop these proposals and listen to families and the organisations working with them to find a proper solution, or else it risks failing a generation of children.”

Katie Ghose, the chair of the Disabled Children’s Partnership, said: “Hundreds of thousands of children rely on these plans to go to school safely and learn. This would represent a fundamental break from four decades of political consensus that disabled children need legal guarantees to access education. Without that, the government risks sending more children out of school and into a system where their needs are simply not met.”

Steve Broach KC, lawyer, disability, and children’s rights advocate, said: “The fundamental problem with the suggestion to dilute EHC Plans is that they reflect SEND needs; they don’t create needs. The Government can reduce statutory entitlements but can’t legislate away need, so any new framework will break just as the current one has unless properly resourced.”

Alison Bloomer

Alison Bloomer is Editor of Learning Disability Today. She has over 25 years of experience writing for medical journals and trade publications. Subjects include healthcare, pharmaceuticals, disability, insurance, stock market and emerging technologies. She is also a mother to a gorgeous 13-year-old boy who has a learning disability.

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