Recommendation 10

The “reasonable endeavours” duty in relation to Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans is a nebulous concept, which has been inconsistently interpreted and poorly understood by some local authorities, whose support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities fell far short of an acceptable standard after the issuing of national section 42 notices from May to July. There were extreme examples of local authorities failing to communicate at all with children and young people and their families. This is clearly unacceptable. We understand and support the intention to provide local authorities with flexibility to adapt to local circumstances during the pandemic, but they must not be allowed to interpret a relaxed duty as leeway to do nothing to support children and young people’s needs.