The SENAT's work on outstanding EHC needs assessments

Updated: 28th March 2024

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Below is a message from the Special Educational Needs Assessment Team:

West Sussex County Council is working hard to ensure that children and young people who require statutory or specialist help receive the right support at the right time.

Like many local authorities, we are managing a significant increase in the number and complexity of requests for Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessments and Education, Health and Care plans (EHC plans), which has affected the number of assessments we have been able to complete on time.

We recognise that the delays and number of needs assessments waiting for the next stage of deciding whether a plan is required, and writing and issuing either a draft plan or an inclusion plan is causing a great deal of anxiety and concern to many families.

Work is ongoing to improve our practices, to ensure we maintain our commitment to providing suitable educational provision for our children and young people and help them fulfil their potential.

This includes developing an EHCP response plan, increasing the capacity of our Educational Psychology Team and Special Education Needs and Assessment Team (SENAT), and dedicating resources to manage assessments.

During the week of Monday 15 April to Friday 19 April, the SENAT will be focusing on working through the outstanding EHC needs assessments where all of the professional information and advice has been received. Our data shows that this is a week of the year when new requests for needs assessments are historically lower and so we anticipate the impact on this area of work will be low.

We remain committed to supporting all children, young people with special educational needs and their families, and during this period, SENAT will monitor urgent enquires through a dedicated central inbox to determine whether immediate support is needed by parent/carers or schools.

We know how important this work is and we are confident that this work will help to reduce the numbers of outstanding and overdue EHC needs assessments.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. For more information, please visit the SENAT web page. Details of the dedicated inbox will be shared on this page from Monday 15 April.