EHC Needs Assessments: How the Process Generally Works

An EHC needs assessment is the local authority's formal process for looking in detail at a child's education, health and care needs and deciding whether an EHC plan is needed. A parent, a young person, or the school can ask the local authority for one. The authority first decides whether to carry out an assessment, gathers advice and reports if it goes ahead, and then decides whether to issue a plan. The whole process has set timescales in law, measured in weeks, and each stage produces a letter. This guide describes the process in general terms only. It is not advice about any individual case, and your local authority's own pages and letters govern what happens in yours.

The request comes first: a letter or form asking the authority to carry out an assessment, usually with information about the child's needs and the support already in place at school, which is where the records from the graduated approach are often used. The authority then decides whether an assessment is needed and writes with that decision. If it proceeds, the authority gathers advice from the people involved: the school, parents, relevant professionals and, where involved, health and social care colleagues. Parents are asked for their views, and the child's views are sought in an age appropriate way. Finally the authority decides whether to issue an EHC plan, and if it does, a draft plan is shared so parents can comment before the final version.

The process runs to statutory timescales, commonly described as a twenty week journey from request to a final plan where one is issued, with earlier decision points along the way, including a decision on whether to assess in the first weeks. Treat any week counts you read, including here, as a general shape rather than a promise: the official steps on GOV.UK and the dates in your own council's letters are what count. A practical habit is to note each date as letters arrive, in the way described in keeping records through the review year, so the timeline in your folder always matches the letters rather than your memory of them.

One part of the process surprises some families: the formal invitation to put views in writing. Parents are asked what they see at home, what matters to their child, and what they hope education will make possible. Schools sometimes call this a parent views form or a one page profile on the child's side. There is no required style. Plain, dated, specific writing helps any reader: short examples of everyday situations, what support is already in place, and what has been tried. Charities such as IPSEA publish plain English guides to each stage, listed below, and many councils run a local SEND information and advice service that explains the process to parents in their area for free.

An assessment can end in different ways, and it helps to know the range in advance. The authority may decide a plan is not needed and explain what support it expects to be made through the school's own arrangements. Or it may issue a draft plan, invite comments and a preference for a school place, and then issue a final plan. Decisions come with information about what a family can do if it disagrees, including discussion routes and formal routes with their own deadlines, which the routes families explore when support is refused guide walks through in general terms. Whatever the outcome, the letter explaining it is a key document: keep the original, note its date, and note any deadline it mentions on your calendar the day it arrives.

The assessment process feels large from the outside and procedural from the inside: a request, decisions, gathered advice, and a further decision, each with a letter. Understanding that shape does not decide any case, but it does let a parent follow along, file each stage as it lands, and ask the right desk the right question. Your council's SEND pages and the official sources below carry the detail for your area.