EHCP council report cards

What this shows

When you ask your local authority for an education, health and care needs assessment, two statutory clocks start. The council must decide whether to assess within 6 weeks, and any final plan must be issued within 20 weeks of the original request (SEND Regulations 2014, regulations 5 and 13). The Department for Education publishes each council's record against those deadlines once a year. These pages put that data in one place for parents: your council's latest figures, its trend since 2019, and how it compares nationally.

New to the system? Start with what an EHCP actually is and the deadlines that protect you. And if you have seen the headlines about EHCPs being phased back, the 2026 SEND reforms page sets out what was really announced and when anything changes.

EHC plans exist in England only. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate systems with different statutory frameworks, so this lookup covers the 153 English local authorities.

How long does an EHCP take?

The legal maximum is 20 weeks from the day you request an assessment to the final plan, with the decision on whether to assess due within the first 6 weeks. In practice, England issued 46.4% of new plans within 20 weeks in 2024; the rest waited longer than the law allows, and how much longer depends heavily on where you live. That is what these report cards measure, council by council.

The national picture in 2024

England issued 46.4% of new EHC plans within the statutory 20 weeks in 2024, down from 50.3% the year before. Behind that average sits an enormous postcode lottery: of the 150 councils with published data, 73 met the deadline in fewer than half of cases, 12 managed it in fewer than one case in ten, and 20 delivered over 90%.

England, % of new plans issued within 20 weeks (excluding exceptional cases; plan counts in brackets). † DfE changed the collection method between calendar years 2022 and 2023; treat cross-break trend comparisons with care.

Rankings cover councils that issued at least 30 plans in 2024 (2 smaller councils excluded; their pages carry the same data with a small-numbers caveat). Every percentage is the share of new plans issued within 20 weeks, excluding exceptional cases.

Find your council

East Midlands regional average 39%

• Derby 16.4%
• Derbyshire 37.8%
• Leicester 51.5%
• Leicestershire 4.3%
• Lincolnshire 99%
• North Northamptonshire 17.2%
• Nottingham 29.9%
• Nottinghamshire 37.5%
• Rutland 78.4%
• West Northamptonshire 12.2%

East of England regional average 39.6%

• Bedford 74.2%
• Cambridgeshire 8.8%
• Central Bedfordshire 48.8%
• Essex 15%
• Hertfordshire 56.3%
• Luton 27.1%
• Norfolk 56.3%
• Peterborough 89.4%
• Southend-on-Sea 16.1%
• Suffolk 25.4%
• Thurrock 48.6%

London regional average 66.9%

• Barking and Dagenham 27.7%
• Barnet 100%
• Bexley 68.6%
• Brent 89.3%
• Bromley 64.7%
• Camden 96.6%
• City of London n/a
• Croydon 72.8%
• Ealing 71.5%
• Enfield 85.1%
• Greenwich 36.1%
• Hackney 43.3%
• Hammersmith and Fulham 85.4%
• Haringey 84.2%
• Harrow 38.7%
• Havering 29.4%
• Hillingdon 90.8%
• Hounslow 79.3%
• Islington 79.5%
• Kensington and Chelsea 100%
• Kingston upon Thames 93.8%
• Lambeth 87.2%
• Lewisham n/a
• Merton 82.3%
• Newham 57.6%
• Redbridge 7%
• Richmond upon Thames 94.2%
• Southwark 36%
• Sutton 76.5%
• Tower Hamlets 39.7%
• Waltham Forest 50.8%
• Wandsworth 100%
• Westminster 100%

North East regional average 49%

• County Durham 18.3%
• Darlington 72.5%
• Gateshead 80.8%
• Hartlepool 74.6%
• Middlesbrough 98%
• Newcastle upon Tyne 8.8%
• North Tyneside 40.7%
• Northumberland 49%
• Redcar and Cleveland 45.7%
• South Tyneside 70.9%
• Stockton-on-Tees 71.2%
• Sunderland 79.1%

North West regional average 50.5%

• Blackburn with Darwen 86.5%
• Blackpool 61.6%
• Bolton 72.3%
• Bury 99%
• Cheshire East 47.9%
• Cheshire West and Chester 15.8%
• Cumberland 42.6%
• Halton 56.5%
• Knowsley 55.2%
• Lancashire 17.3%
• Liverpool 97.9%
• Manchester 76.8%
• Oldham 76.6%
• Rochdale 42.2%
• Salford 62.6%
• Sefton 53.1%
• St. Helens 28.8%
• Stockport 7.8%
• Tameside 29.4%
• Trafford 53.4%
• Warrington 59.7%
• Westmorland and Furness 91.6%
• Wigan 42.6%
• Wirral 12.6%

South East regional average 38.2%

• Bracknell Forest 45.8%
• Brighton and Hove 97.8%
• Buckinghamshire 32.1%
• East Sussex 85.1%
• Hampshire 41%
• Isle of Wight 28.6%
• Kent 33.3%
• Medway 11.9%
• Milton Keynes 43%
• Oxfordshire 38.5%
• Portsmouth 4.3%
• Reading 59.1%
• Slough 7.5%
• Southampton 97.5%
• Surrey 41.3%
• West Berkshire 55.8%
• West Sussex 11.4%
• Windsor and Maidenhead 100%
• Wokingham 56.8%

South West regional average 28.5%

• Bath and North East Somerset 24.8%
• Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 77.6%
• Bristol 17.4%
• Cornwall 7%
• Devon 3.2%
• Dorset n/a
• Gloucestershire 26.1%
• Isles of Scilly 100%
• North Somerset 61.5%
• Plymouth 6%
• Somerset 33.5%
• South Gloucestershire 61.6%
• Swindon 49.4%
• Torbay 28.9%
• Wiltshire 29.5%

West Midlands regional average 42.3%

• Birmingham 26.7%
• Coventry 63.4%
• Dudley 52.3%
• Herefordshire 67.6%
• Sandwell 27.2%
• Shropshire 36.5%
• Solihull 80.4%
• Staffordshire 36.3%
• Stoke-on-Trent 32.8%
• Telford and Wrekin 87.4%
• Walsall 87.1%
• Warwickshire 21.3%
• Wolverhampton 55.8%
• Worcestershire 37.4%

Yorkshire and The Humber regional average 56.7%

• Barnsley 96.8%
• Bradford 89.6%
• Calderdale 95.6%
• Doncaster 84.9%
• East Riding of Yorkshire 96.5%
• Kingston upon Hull 5.8%
• Kirklees 22.9%
• Leeds 9.3%
• North East Lincolnshire 36.8%
• North Lincolnshire 18.6%
• North Yorkshire 24.6%
• Rotherham 77.7%
• Sheffield 49%
• Wakefield 86.2%
• York 65.1%

About the data

Figures are from the DfE "Education, health and care plans", reporting year 2025 (published 2025-06-26), covering plans issued in calendar year 2024. The percentage shown beside each council is the share of new plans issued within 20 weeks, excluding cases the regulations treat as exceptional. Each council page shows both counting methods, the number of plans behind every percentage, and the caveats that apply. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.