Source · Select Committees · Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Rejected
Paragraph: 50
Assessing needs and securing provision for children and young people meeting the threshold for EHC...
Recommendation
Assessing needs and securing provision for children and young people meeting the threshold for EHC Plans was an extreme challenge for local authorities during the peak of the pandemic earlier this year. Local authorities could not have been expected to meet their EHC Plan duties fully in these circumstances; some flexibility was needed. It is less clear whether it was necessary for the relaxed “reasonable endeavours” duty to remain in place until the end of July, leaving many children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities with very little or no support for three months. We recommend the Department review the information- gathering and decision-making processes in place with a view to making a faster decision to return to full EHC Plan duties, should flexibilities be introduced again.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government states it kept temporary changes to EHC Plan duties under close review and restored full support by July 31st. They do not intend to issue further notices to modify the EHC duty unless evidence changes, thereby implicitly rejecting the need to review processes for making faster decisions to return to full duties.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
50
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government · verbatim extract
Rejected
Education, Health and Care Plans (Paragraph 50): WESC recommendation: We recommend the Department review the information-gathering and decision-making processes in place with a view to making a faster decision to return to full EHC Plan duties, should flexibilities be introduced 5 again.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗