Unlawful transition guidance

On Wednesday I wrote about an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) I received on a case. I was concerned that the content of the EHCP was unlawful. I am awaiting a response from the relevant legal team about that and will post their response here.

Bearing in mind the Warwickshire case I decided to take a look at the relevant local authority’s Local Offer. Unsurprisingly, the content is fairly piecemeal and lacks any information of substance about qualifying criteria for various services.

Within the Local Offer the local authority has included a guidance document entitled “Transition to the new 0 to 25 special educational needs and disability system – Transition Plan September 2014 to August 2015”. This is the document that the local authority has prepared to explain how a Statement will change into an EHCP.

For reference, we have prepared an accurate explanation of how a Statement turns into an EHCP. It can be found here.

The local authority’s document contains one section which seeks to explain how the transition actually happens. That section is copied here:

(click on above image to enlarge)

The main issue I have is that there is not one reference to an EHC needs assessment.

Transition from Statement to EHCP must include an EHC needs assessment. My use of bold text is copied from the SEND Code of Practice and the Transition Guidance published by the Department for Education.

As the transition process should be dominated by an EHC needs assessment it is concerning that this document makes no reference to it.

I have now had two cases with this particular local authority. In both cases the local authority have attempted to conduct the transition without completing an EHC needs assessment.

Sadly,this is yet more evidence that parents, young people and professionals supporting them need to know the law. Clearly, at least this local authority does not understand its obligations.

It is probably worth checking your local authority’s website to see if similar issues exist.