Just over half of Hertfordshire County Council education plans delivered within legal timeframe

Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are statutory documents that outline a child’s special educational needs, the support that they should be offered and even the school they should attend.

And once a request is made for an EHCP, they should be assessed and determined within a statutory 20-week time-frame.

According to a report presented to councillors this week, there were 2,099 EHCPs issued by the county council in 2024 – 27 per cent more than the year before.

But just 54 per cent of those EHCPs were issued within the “expected time-scales”.

The report – presented to a meeting of the council’s children, young people and families cabinet panel on Tuesday- points to the increasing number of requests for EHCPs, the increasing number of completed EHCPs and the improving quality.

According to the data in the report there were 3,308 requests made for an EHCP assessment last year (2024).

That’s 16 per cent more than the 2,855 requests made in the previous year (2023) and 55 per cent more than the 2,137 in 2021.

In the same 12-month period there were 2,447 requests that were agreed – and 2099 completed.

The number of EHCPs completed in 2024 is 27 per cent higher than the 1,651 in 2023 – and 51 per cent more than the 1,390 in 2021.

Meanwhile the quality of the EHCPs is also reported to be improving – with 51 per cent of plans audited judged to be good or outstanding in the last three months of the calendar year.

Over the course of the 12-month period overall 54 per cent of children and young people received their completed EHCPs within the 20-week time-frame.

But the report also records that in the final three months of the period – between October and December – that performance was lower, at 46 per cent.

As part of it’s improvement plan the council has set a target of completing 60 per cent of EHCPs within 20-weeks by April (2025).

And the report presented to the cabinet panel states: “The additional investment proposed in the Integrated Plan will support the continued work to improve timeliness further to meet both the milestone of 60% identified in the Priority Action Plan and beyond: this is absolutely not a ‘ceiling’: it represents an improvement milestone as set out in the Priority Action Plan agreed in January 2024 and based on our starting baseline.

“Our ambition is to support all children in a timely way and be among the best performers in the country and we are committed to achieving this, on the context of a national challenge for SEND.”