The EHCP annual review process: steps and timescales

The duty to review

A local authority must review every education, health and care (EHC) plan it maintains at least once every 12 months (Children and Families Act 2014, section 44; SEND Regulations 2014, regulation 18). The first review falls within 12 months of the date the plan was issued, and each later review within 12 months of the previous one. The authority may review sooner, and the school, the parents or the young person can ask it to.

For children under five, the Code of Practice (paragraph 9.178) says authorities should consider reviewing at least every three to six months. That is guidance about good practice, not a statutory duty, and it should be described that way to parents.

In practice the authority usually requires the school to arrange and hold the review meeting on its behalf (regulation 20), which is why the SENCO (or SENDCo) ends up owning the calendar. Use the annual review planner to turn a plan date into the dates below, and the annual review checklist for the week-by-week preparation.

The process step by step

Before the meeting

Regulation 20 fixes two things about preparation. Everyone who must be invited (the parents or young person, the school, an officer of the authority, a health representative and a social care representative) must be given at least two weeks’ notice of the meeting, and the person arranging it must seek advice and information from them and circulate what comes back at least two weeks before the meeting (Code of Practice 9.176). Everything else about preparation is good practice, and the checklist covers it.

The school’s own advice for the meeting should do four things: report progress against each outcome in Section E with evidence; say whether each line of Section F has been delivered as written, and if not, why; note any change in needs since the plan was written; and set out the school’s recommendations. Keep it to what you can show. The pupil’s and parents’ views go in alongside it; see parent and pupil views for annual reviews.

At the meeting

The review must focus on the pupil’s progress towards the outcomes in the plan, and must consider whether the outcomes and the supporting targets remain appropriate, whether the provision is still right, and, from Year 9, preparation for adulthood (Code of Practice 9.166 to 9.168). It must be undertaken in partnership with the child and parents or the young person, and take account of their views. The meeting has no power to change the plan; it makes recommendations to the authority, which decides.

Record attendees and apologies, the views expressed, the evidence considered and the recommendations, including any proposed changes to Sections B, E, F and I with reasons, and where views differed.

After the meeting: the report and the decision

Within two weeks of the meeting the school must send its written report to everyone who was invited and to the authority (regulation 20). The report sets out the recommendations on the content of the plan and notes any difference between the school’s recommendation and anyone else’s view. Send it with a covering email so the date is on record.

Within four weeks of the meeting the authority must decide whether to keep the plan as it is, amend it, or cease to maintain it, and must notify the parents or young person and the school in writing (regulation 20). This is the date most often missed, and the one the SENCO should diarise on the day of the meeting.

Amendments, ceasing and appeals

If the authority proposes to amend, it must send the parents or young person a notice of the proposed amendments with copies of the evidence that supports them, and give them at least 15 days to comment and to ask for a particular school to be named (regulation 22; Code of Practice 9.194 to 9.196). If it then goes ahead, it must issue the amended plan as quickly as possible and within eight weeks of that notice (regulation 22; Code of Practice 9.196). Check the current wording of regulation 22 before quoting the eight weeks in correspondence.

A decision to cease the plan, or to leave it unchanged when the family asked for amendments, carries a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal for the parents or young person (section 51 of the Act). In 2024/25, 61% of appeals concerned the content of plans, so the quality of the review report matters well beyond the meeting room.

Year 9 and phase transfers

From the review in Year 9 onwards, every review must include a focus on preparing for adulthood: higher education or employment, independent living, participation in society and health (Code of Practice 8.9 and 9.183 to 9.185). Invite colleges or other post-16 providers where a transfer is coming.

Where the pupil will move between phases of education, the authority must review and amend the plan by 15 February in the calendar year of the transfer, or by 31 March for a move to a post-16 institution (regulation 18(3)). Working back through the eight-week amendment period, the four-week decision and the two-week notice, a Year 6 or Year 11 review needs to be held in the autumn term.

When the authority is late

1. The day after the four-week decision date, email the SEN officer: give the meeting date, quote regulation 20, and ask for the decision in writing by a stated date. Copy the parents or young person in.
2. If an amendment notice has been issued but no amended plan arrives, chase at eight weeks from the notice, citing regulation 22 and asking for the issue date.
3. Keep every chase and every reply in one dated log per pupil; see logging local authority communication.
4. Tell the family that the right to complain under the authority’s procedure, and any right of appeal, is theirs, and give them the chronology they need to use it.

Delay at this stage leaves the school delivering a plan everyone at the meeting agreed is out of date. Until the amended plan is issued, the existing plan is the one the authority must secure and the school must deliver, so keep delivering Section F as written and record any agreed changes as the school’s own targets in the meantime.

Where reviews go wrong

• Invitations sent inside two weeks, so the authority’s officer does not attend and the decision is delayed.
• No evidence against Section E, so the meeting discusses impressions rather than progress.
• The school report goes out late, or only to the authority, so parents cannot check it before the decision.
• Nobody diarises the four-week decision, and the plan drifts for another year.

Sendiphany keeps each pupil’s review date with reminders, collects parent and staff contributions through forms, and assembles the review pack from the termly targets and progress already recorded.