The Education Secretary's response to today's Education, health and care
(EHC) plans statistics is below
They show that the overall number of
children and young people with EHC plans increased
to 638,700 as at census day in January 2025
(an 11% increase). And only 46%
of new EHC plans were issued within the 20-week timeframe – a
decrease on last year's 50%.
Education Secretary , said:
“We inherited a SEND system on its knees, and at the heart of
these figures are families fighting for support that should just
be readily available.
“Too many children are not having their needs identified at an
early enough stage, creating a vicious cycle of overwhelmed local
services and children's support needs escalating to crisis point.
“Through our Plan for Change, we're improving things right now,
and will break this vicious cycle with wide-ranging reform. We've
already invested £740 million to create more places for children
with SEND in mainstream schools, we're increasing early access to
speech, language and neurodiversity support, and we'll set out
our full plans to improve experiences for every child and family
in the autumn.”
Background briefing:
- The figures show:
-
- The overall number of children
and young people with EHC plans increased
to 638,700 as at census day in January
2025 (a 11% increase), highlighting a
continued rapid growth in needs not being addressed early and
allowed to escalate.
-
Less than half (just 46%) of new EHC plans
were issued within the 20-week
timeframe. This is a decrease on
last year when it was over half
(50.3%).
- There is a shocking postcode lottery in
timeliness – with some areas seeing less than 1 in 20 plans
issued within the 20-week timeframe.
- The total number of tribunals has
increased in 2024 with 22,276 registered, an increase
of 43%. Our new methodology shows a much higher,
more accurate national estimate of over 1 in 20
(6%) decisions taken to appeal for 2024,
highlighting the failings in the current system to put in
place effective support that children and parents deserve.
- And for many families, even once they've battled to
secure a plan it doesn't mean this support is actually
delivered. Data from the Local Government and Social Care
Ombudsman highlights that over one in four of all
complaints made in the last financial year were about SEND
provision, with one of the two main issues
being failures to deliver the provision set out in
EHCPs.
- This government has been taking action to address this:
-
- Our Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme is
providing support with speech and language development for
tens of thousands of children in reception year.
- We've allocated £3.4 million in 25/26, jointly with NHSE,
to continue delivering the ELSEC (Early Language Support for
Every Child) programme, to up to 20,000 children.
- The Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in
Schools (PINS) helps build teacher and staff capacity to
identify and better meet the needs of neurodivergent children
– and we've announced £9.5 million in 25/26 to continue
delivering PINS in a further 1,200 schools – reaching 300,000
children, including those with dyslexia, autism, and ADHD.
- We are committed to driving inclusivity and expertise and
have invested £740 million to encourage
councils to create more specialist places in mainstream
schools, paving the way for significant, long-term reform.
- More widely funding for schools is increasing by £4.7 billion
per year by 2028-29. This additional funding will provide an
above real terms per pupil increase on the core schools budget
and contribute to transformation of the SEND system.
- We will improve support for children, stop parents from
having to fight, and protect provision currently in place – with
details of the government's full approach to SEND reform to be
set out in a Schools White Paper in the autumn.
