EHCP timescales: the 6, 16 and 20-week deadlines explained

Why the dates matter to a SENCO

When a school or a parent asks a local authority for an education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment, a statutory clock starts. The Children and Families Act 2014 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 set the maximum time the authority may take at each stage. The SENCO (sometimes written SENDCo) is usually the first person to notice when a date slips, so it pays to know the dates precisely and to write down where each request sits.

The limits are maximums, not targets, and they are often missed: in 2025, 46.1% of new plans in England were issued within 20 weeks (DfE, June 2026). A school that records the date the request was received, diarises each deadline and writes to the authority the day after one passes is doing something that changes how quickly the pupil gets provision.

The timeline at a glance

The regulations count in whole weeks from the day the request is received. They make no allowance for bank holidays or half terms; the only holiday that matters is the four-week school closure described under the exceptions below. Use the EHCP timeline calculator to turn a request date into calendar dates for your pupil.

Week 0: the request

The clock starts on the day the authority receives the request for an EHC needs assessment (section 36 of the Children and Families Act 2014). A request can come from the school, the parent, the young person, or someone else who brings the child to the authority’s attention. Write down three things: the date you sent the request, the route you used (portal, named inbox, post), and the date the authority says it received it. If the two dates differ, the authority’s received date is the one that counts, so get it in writing.

Schools lose a week here when the request goes by post or sits in a generic inbox. Send it by the authority’s stated route, ask for a written acknowledgement with the received date, and log the exchange. For what the request itself should contain, see what evidence to send with an EHC needs assessment request.

Week 6: decision whether to assess

Within six weeks of the request the authority must decide whether to carry out an assessment and notify the parent or young person (regulations 4 and 5). Paragraph 9.14 of the Code of Practice lists the evidence the authority should consider, which is why the school’s record of the graduated approach matters so much at this stage. Regulation 5(4) allows the authority longer only in the same narrow circumstances as the 20-week exceptions described below.

If the authority refuses to assess, the parent or young person has a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal (section 51 of the Act). Refusals to assess made up 24% of the appeals registered in 2024/25, and the school’s evidence is usually the core of such an appeal, so keep the request pack together and dated.

Weeks 6 to 12: the school’s advice

If the authority agrees to assess, it must seek advice and information from the parent or young person, the school, an educational psychologist, health and social care, and anyone else the parent or young person reasonably requests (regulation 6). Each person asked has six weeks to respond (regulation 8). For the school that means the SENCO’s written advice on the pupil’s needs, the provision already in place and the outcomes the school thinks are realistic; see writing the school’s contribution.

The six weeks for advice run from the date the authority asks you, not from the original request. Diarise the due date the day the request for advice arrives, and send the advice with a covering email so you have proof of the date.

Week 16: decision not to issue a plan

Having assessed, the authority may conclude that a plan is not necessary. If so, it must notify the parent or young person within 16 weeks of the original request (regulation 10) and tell them about their right to appeal. If the authority decides a plan is necessary, it must still tell the parent or young person the outcome of the assessment (section 36(9) of the Act), but there is no separate 16-week date for that decision: the next fixed milestone is the final plan at 20 weeks, so a draft should follow soon after week 16.

Weeks 16 to 20: draft and final plan

When the authority decides to issue a plan it sends the parent or young person a draft and must give them at least 15 days to comment, to ask for a particular school to be named and to ask for a meeting (regulation 13(1)). The draft does not name the school. The authority must consult the school it proposes to name before naming it, and the Code says the school should respond within 15 days (Code of Practice 9.80). The final plan must be issued within 20 weeks of the original request (regulation 13(2); Code of Practice 9.40).

Regulation 13(3) allows the authority to go beyond 20 weeks only where meeting the limit is impractical because the authority asked the head teacher for advice during a period around a school closure of four weeks or more (in practice, the summer holiday); because exceptional personal circumstances affect the child, parent or young person; or because the child, parent or young person is absent from the authority’s area for a continuous period of at least four weeks. The list is exhaustive. Staff shortages at the authority are not on it.

What the school should have written down by week 20

• The date the request was sent, the route, and the date the authority acknowledged receiving it.
• The date the decision to assess arrived, and the name of the caseworker.
• The date the request for advice arrived and the date the school’s advice was sent.
• The date the draft plan arrived, the date the school was consulted about Section I, and the date the school replied.
• The date the final plan arrived, and the date the school began delivering Section F.

Those dates are the whole chronology. If anything goes to complaint or appeal later, they are what the parents and the authority will need, and a SENCO who has them in one place can produce the timeline in a minute.

What to do when a deadline passes

1. Confirm the start date in writing. Dates slip most often because nobody agreed when the request was received.
2. The day after the deadline, email the named caseworker: quote the regulation, state the date it fell due, and ask for a written date by which the stage will be completed and whether the authority is relying on any exception.
3. Copy the parent or young person in, or make sure they know, because the rights to complain and to appeal belong to them.
4. If there is no response, write to the SEN team manager and then use the authority’s complaints procedure. The school cannot complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman on the family’s behalf, but it can give the parents the dated chronology they will need if they do.

The guide on logging local authority communication has a week-by-week chasing routine and a template email. Sendiphany tracks each assessment against the 6, 16 and 20-week dates from the request date you record and reminds the SENCO at each stage; the reminders are a prompt, not a substitute for your judgement.