Liberal Democrat County Councillors have called the backlog in issuing Education Health and Care Plans (“EHCPs”) – legal documents drawn up by the County Council following an assessment which describes a child or a young person’s (aged up to 25) special educational needs, the support they need, and the outcomes they would like to achieve – “completely unacceptable”.

In December 2022 there were 988 active requests for EHCPs in Surrey, of which 284 were known to have already exceeded the 20 week statutory limit for being carried out and without the personal EHCP the child or young person cannot access the education that they need.

The County Council has attributed a large part of the delays to staffing issues, in particular a shortage of educational psychologists who were needed to complete the plans.

As Liberal Democrat councillors, we believe that these excessive delays are just not acceptable and undermine the Council’s ambition that no one should be left behind.

The children and young people affected are already disadvantaged in terms of their education and the situation is made worse for them and their families by having to wait such a long time for their EHCP to be put in place.

We recognise that the County Council has been focusing on the recruitment and training of additional caseworkers and the workforce is now around 80 per cent staffed across the county, with the staff doing their utmost to improve the timeline for applications. However, this is little comfort to the families who have not received the ECHPs for their children.

We will be keeping the pressure up on the County Council to make sure this issue is resolved and that Surrey’s children and young people receive timely assessments and the education provision that they need.