Logging local authority communication about EHCPs: what to record and when to chase

Why a log, not an inbox

Most of what a SENCO (or SENDCo) needs to know about a pupil’s education, health and care (EHC) process is in email: the date a request was acknowledged, the name of the caseworker, the promise to issue a draft “by the end of the month”. An inbox holds that information but cannot answer questions about it. When a caseworker changes, when a parent asks what is happening, or when a complaint needs a chronology, the SENCO ends up reconstructing the story from search results.

A communication log is a dated list, per pupil, of every exchange with the local authority. It takes a minute to maintain, and it changes the character of the relationship with the authority: calm, specific and evidenced.

What to record

For phone calls, send a one-line email afterwards confirming what was agreed (“As discussed, you expect the draft by 3 May”), so the call becomes a written record the authority has seen. Keep the pupil’s name out of email subject lines and file names; use the authority’s reference and the pupil’s initials, with full names inside the body or the secure system.

Chase on the statutory date, not on frustration

The SEND Regulations 2014 give you the dates. For an EHC needs assessment they are six weeks for the decision whether to assess, 16 weeks for a decision not to issue a plan and 20 weeks for the final plan; for an annual review they are the school’s report within two weeks of the meeting and the authority’s decision within four weeks, then eight weeks from an amendment notice to the amended plan (check the current wording of regulation 22). The regulations behind each are set out in EHCP timescales and the annual review process, and the EHCP timeline calculator turns a request date into the calendar dates. Put every one of them in the log the day the process starts.

A chase sent the day after the date, quoting the regulation, is more effective than three emails sent in week 19. A workable routine for an assessment:

1. Week 6: if no decision has arrived, email the caseworker, quote regulations 4 and 5, give the received date and ask for the decision date in writing, and whether any exception is being relied on.
2. Week 16: check whether a draft plan is expected or a decision not to issue has arrived; if neither, ask which it will be and when.
3. Week 18: a polite note that the 20-week limit falls on a stated date, asking whether any regulation 13(3) exception is being relied on.
4. Week 20 and after: a formal letter copied to the SEN team manager, then the authority’s complaints procedure if there is still no response.

For a review, the routine is shorter: diarise four weeks from the meeting on the day of the meeting, chase the day after if nothing has arrived, and if an amendment notice follows, diarise eight weeks from it. Keep the tone neutral throughout. The log is a record, not a weapon, and a record that reads as fair-minded is more persuasive to an ombudsman, a tribunal or a director of children’s services than one that reads as a grievance.

A template for a chasing email

“Dear [caseworker], I am writing about the EHC needs assessment request for [initials], your reference [ref], which your team acknowledged as received on [date]. Under regulations 4 and 5 of the SEND Regulations 2014 the decision whether to assess was due by [date]. We have not yet received it. Could you confirm the decision, or the date by which it will be made, in writing, and let us know if the authority is relying on any exception to the time limit? The parents are copied in. Thank you for your help. [Name, SENCO, school]”

Short, dated, sourced, and copied to the people with the legal standing to complain. That is the whole technique. Swap the regulation and the date for the 16-week, 20-week and four-week chases.

When the caseworker changes

Caseworker turnover is one of the most common causes of delay. When a new name appears, send a one-paragraph summary from the log: request date, acknowledgement date, stage reached, outstanding items and the next statutory date. Ask them to confirm it. You have now handed the chronology to the authority in writing, and the new caseworker cannot reasonably restart the clock.

Using the log in complaints and appeals

The school cannot appeal to the SEND Tribunal or complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman on a family’s behalf, but it can give the parents or young person a chronology that makes their case. In 2024/25 the Tribunal registered 25,002 appeals; the Ombudsman takes complaints about an authority’s handling of a case once the authority’s own complaints procedure has been used. A log exported as a dated table, with the regulation each date relies on, is exactly the evidence both processes ask for.

The log also protects the school. If a parent asks why a plan took 40 weeks, the answer is in the log, with the dates the school did its part: advice sent in week 9, consultation answered within 15 days, every chase recorded.

Keeping it going without extra hours

• Log at the moment of contact. An entry takes a minute; reconstruction takes an afternoon.
• Record the response due date on every outgoing message, and review the overdue list once a week.
• Use the same log for annual review correspondence so the four-week decision date is never lost.
• Keep the log where other authorised staff can see it, so a SENCO’s absence does not stall a case.
• Once a term, export each live case as a dated table and send it to the parents, so they always hold the chronology too.

Sendiphany keeps a communication log per pupil with direction, channel, caseworker, response due and response received, tracks each assessment against the 6, 16 and 20-week dates from the request date you record, and reminds you at each stage.