EHCP needs assessment wait times

[TankFlyBoss]

I wondered if anyone else's child is facing a long wait over statutory timescales for the child's EHC needs assessment to be carried out. My DD had an agreement to assess in August and the draft EHCP is late. I heard last week that she was over 500th on the waitlist for educational psychologist assessment and they don't expect to see her until next academic year. Meaning her EHCP would be somewhere in the region of 70 weeks or more.

It seems so unbelievably crap.

You can force the LA to act. The EHCP timescales are governed by legislation. Anyone from a public body asked for advice must respond within 6 weeks. If the LA is not going to issue, they must inform you by week 16. If the LA is going to issue, they must finalise by week 20 and in order to do that should send a draft by week 14.

IPSEA has a model letter you can send to the DCS. You can send this now.

If that doesn’t work and the LA breaches the statutory timescales, you need a pre-action letter. SOSSEN will be able to help with this free-of-charge. Although there is a wait so you may want to look elsewhere. If that fails, judicial review proceedings will resolve the matter.

Thank you @BrightYellowTrain for taking the time to reply and all the information.

Does that mean that having gone past the 16 week deadline for informing me if they are not going to issue, once she does see an EP the LA will then have to issue a plan? In other words can they still refuse to issue past week 16 on the grounds that she hadn't yet been assessed at the 16 week deadline

Unfortunately, the LA may still refuse to issue.