Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations she has received about the length of time parents and young people wait for an Education Health and Care Plan; and if she will slow down the transfer to the new system to ensure that local authorities are better prepared to move to the new system.

There has been on-going dialogue with parents and local authorities on the time frame for Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessment and EHC plan development. The government has listened to those views, and as a result, from 1 September 2015 we extended the timescale for the completion of the transfer of a statement of SEN to an EHC plan from 16 to 20 weeks. This is for Transfer Reviews commenced on or after 1 September 2015: a minimum of two weeks’ notice period, followed by a maximum of 18 weeks for the Transfer Review itself.

We are continuing to monitor the EHC plan transfer process.