Bucks pledges £3million to tackle very long waiting times for special needs children’s assessments

Special needs children in Buckinghamshire are waiting more than twice as long for legally required education plans, a report has shown.

Education, Health and Care plans (EHCPs) are legal documents for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), which outline a child’s needs across education.

They are in use for children in special schools, in mainstream schools, those in some kind of alternative provision – and indeed, those who currently have nowhere to go.

Money used to pay for the support that children with EHCPs receive comes from a pot of Government funding.

Nationally, demand for EHCPs has grown faster than this funding, putting pressure on services and local authority budgets, Bucks council notes.

In Buckinghamshire, the number of EHCPs has risen from 4,595 to 7,217 in five years, suggesting increased need.

The whole process, from the local authority (LA) receiving a request for an EHCP, must be completed in no more than 20 weeks (about 5 months). It is a legal duty for the council.

Yet, as of September 1, there were 1,488 children under assessment in Buckinghamshire with 1,234 of these beyond the 20-week deadline.

The current average wait of completed plans is 47 weeks – more than double the target timescale set out in statute.

This subject is of particular prominence lately; multiple local authority areas up and down the country held protests outside the doors of their councils this month to demonstrate the number of children left in limbo with inadequate education options.

A Bucks council report on the subject says this situation is ‘unsustainable’.

“The council recognises that prolonged wait times for EHCPs can significantly affect children, young people, and their families, as well as schools,” Bucks council wrote.

“We know that the impact can be particularly acute for children with severe needs and that the absence of a timely, graduated response can result in escalating needs, placement breakdowns, and the requirement for more intensive – and often more costly – interventions.”

Tackling this demand requires facing ‘exceptional challenges’ in recruiting specialist staff, and ensuring there is enough alternative provision to meet the needs of those pupils who are not suited to a mainstream school.

Bucks council has funded an additional 262 specialist school places since 2020 and plans are in place to create a further 300 places by 2027.

The Government notified the council in 2024 that it had approved funding for a new special Free School for children with social, emotional, and mental health needs, including trauma.

In addition, the report proposes an investment of a total of £3million to accelerate the EHCP assessment process and tackle the waiting lists.

The council has found £3 million of spare money this year because some of its central budgets have spent less than expected.

The target would therefore be to issue a minimum of 170 EHCP plans per month over the next two years.

This, the council says, will however add pressure both to the special needs education budget and the transport budget.

Seventy per cent of the Home to School Transport budget is spent on transporting pupils with SEND to placements.

The only real way to stop the SEND deficit from getting even bigger is to create a lot more local specialist places, both inside mainstream schools and in special schools, Bucks council thinks.

South Buckinghamshire ‘is significantly underserved in special educational needs and disabilities provision’ – that is the opinion of Beaconsfield MP Joy Morrissey, talking to Parliament in January this year.