How to Request a Statutory Assessment for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)

How to request a statutory assessment for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)

A child’s parent(s)/carer, nurseries, schools and colleges are all able to request an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment for an education health and care plan on behalf of a child with special educational needs (SEN). Young people who are over the age of 16 and who are no longer in compulsory education are also able to request an assessment. An EHC Plan may be issued following the assessment process.

Requests for assessments are considered by a panel made up of representatives from Education, Health and Social Care. The panel helps the Local Authority make a decision whether or not to carry out an EHC needs assessment within 6 weeks of the request being made or earlier if possible.

The EHC needs assessment will consider the written advice from professionals involved with the child or young person. The views of the child/ young person and their parent/carers will be central to this, and will help to personalise the assessment.

The assessment will support us in making a decision about whether an EHC Plan will be issued. If the outcome of the assessment is that an EHC Plan is required, the process should take no longer than 20 weeks to complete. If it's decided that an EHC Plan will not be issued, parents/carers/the young person must be informed of this decision within 16 weeks of making the initial request for an assessment.

Before submitting a request for a statutory assessment for a child or young person, please refer to the Rochdale’s Graduated Response to SEN.

Requesting an EHC Plan

Requests for a statutory EHC needs assessment should be made by completing the request form below:

Statutory Needs Assessment Form - For EHC Plan

Please print out your completed form and send it to us in the post along with all accompanying documentation (see below) to:

SEN Assessment Team

Rochdale Borough Council

Number One Riverside

Smith St

Rochdale

OL16 1XU

What do I need to include with my request?

The following documents must be submitted alongside a request for assessment:

Parental Advice Form A with signed consent for the assessment.
Evidence of person centred planning including the child or young person’s likes, dislikes (a one-page profile may be used) or other person centred planning tools.
Up to date educational Information (if not already included in the body of the request form).
Any up to date professional reports/advice from professionals involved in supporting the child or young person (e.g. Educational Psychology, Physiotherapy, Speech and Language Therapy etc.). Already existing reports can be used towards the assessment where it is agreed that they suitable for this purpose by the professional and the young person or their parents. The following template is also available to use if no existing report is available.

Professional advice template

Evidence of how the school’s notional SEN budget has been used to support the child/young person in school.

See SEN funding fact sheet for further information

What happens next?

A panel will decide, based on the information provided within the request, whether to advise the Local Authority that a statutory assessment should be undertaken. If the statutory assessment does go ahead, the child/young person and family will be assigned an Education Officer who will coordinate the assessment process and provide advice to support the family during this assessment period. If the outcome of an assessment is an EHCP, this plan will be completed and issued within 20 weeks of the date the SEN Team received the request for assessment.

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