Government research on EHCP bureaucracy suggests ministers are building up to SEND cuts

The government’s decision to publish research that shows the bureaucratic and time-consuming nature of its system of educational support has raised fears that its imminent reforms will harm disabled children and young people.

The government released the research just as it is expected to announce sweeping cuts to its system of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The research shows that local authority officials take on average* between 56 and 68 hours on each plan.

The research, carried out internally and published this week, surveyed hundreds of council officials – including educational psychologists, social workers, and SEND case officers – to find out how much “professional time” they spend conducting needs assessments and in developing and issuing EHCPs.

EHCPs describe a young person’s special educational needs, the desired outcomes from any support provided, and the educational, health and social care provision they should receive.

The research found that an educational psychologist spends an average of more than 17 hours on every EHCP, while SEND case officers spend on average more than 11 hours, and SEND managers – who often chair SEND panels – spend nearly 10 hours on average across the various stages of assessing, developing and issuing a plan.

It concluded that, on average, local authority professionals spend between 56 and 68 hours developing and issuing each new EHCP.

It did not include the time spent on reviews of plans or tribunals brought by parents, or the time spent by professionals who are not employed by the local authority, such as speech and language therapists employed by health authorities, or school staff.

The research was based on a survey carried out last summer, which heard from 859 professionals across 100 local authorities, each of whom provided data on the last three EHCPs they had been involved with.

As of January 2025, there were 638,745 children and young people with EHCPs, and the number of new plans has continued to increase since they were introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2014.

Labour’s new SEND white paper is due to be published by the Department for Education (DfE) within days, and it is widely expected to reveal plans to tighten eligibility for support.

Dr Edmore Masendeke, policy and research lead for The Alliance for Inclusive Education, said: “ALLFIE is concerned about the timing of the release of this report as it looks like the DfE is pre-empting what is in the schools white paper.

“Just last week, we heard that local authorities have already been told to start assessing current EHCP provision and prepare for change, the latest leak in recent weeks.

“All this chaos surrounding the DfE and this white paper does not reassure us that it will deliver any change for disabled children and young people.

“Our greatest fear is that things are going to get worse, rather than get better.”

DfE declined to say if ministers released the research this week because the paper appeared to support the need for cuts and major reforms to the EHCP system.

But it said that new funding to train educational psychologists, announced this week alongside the research, would increase capacity to deliver assessments and free up time for them to directly support pupils and staff in schools.

School standards minister Georgia Gould said the white paper would “make a difference for so many families – embedding more support in every single community and school, so that children get the help they need at the earliest stage.

“That starts with making sure specialists spend less time stuck behind a desk and more time giving the direct support to children to transform their education.

“That’s why we’re investing £26 million to train hundreds of new educational psychologists over the next few years – backing our reforms with more people, with the right skills, to enable children with SEND to thrive in education.”

She added: “This cash boost will mean more opportunity to work with schools on the ground – spotting issues before they escalate, training staff to make sure every pupil in their classroom can thrive and running group exercises that help improve learning for pupils with autism, ADHD and other needs.

“This builds on the huge amount of work already underway to put inclusion at the heart of every school, including a landmark £200 million to train every teacher on SEND, so that no child is left behind.”

*Researchers calculated the median figure, which is the middle number after placing all the results in order of size

Picture of the Department for Education’s offices in Westminster by Google