Which English Councils Issue EHCPs Fastest in 2024? The Full 153-LA Leaderboard

In 2024, English councils issued 90,392 new Education, Health and Care Plans, but only 45.9% of them were issued within the statutory 20-week limit. That's down from 50.3% in 2023 and roughly 60% a decade ago. For most SEND families, delay is now the norm, not the exception. The national average hides enormous variation. Three councils issued 100% of new plans on time last year: Barnet, Wandsworth, and Windsor and Maidenhead. At the other end, Devon issued just 3.2% of its 1,277 new plans within 20 weeks. If you live in Devon, a plan that legally should arrive by week 20 is, on average, going to arrive later. Sometimes much later. This post publishes the full leaderboard and explains what the numbers mean for families making SEND decisions.

1. Barnet: 100.0% within 20 weeks (747 plans) 2. Wandsworth: 100.0% (406 plans) 3. Windsor and Maidenhead: 100.0% (127 plans) 4. Lincolnshire: 99.0% (1,099 plans) 5. Bury: 99.0% (296 plans) 6. Kensington and Chelsea: 99.0% (98 plans) 7. Westminster: 98.6% (140 plans) 8. Brighton and Hove: 98.0% (302 plans) 9. Middlesbrough: 98.0% (306 plans) 10. Liverpool: 97.9% (1,285 plans) Full details for each LA: see /send/barnet, /send/wandsworth, /send/windsor-and-maidenhead, /send/lincolnshire, /send/bury, /send/kensington-and-chelsea, /send/westminster, /send/brighton-and-hove, /send/middlesbrough, /send/liverpool. Liverpool is particularly striking: 1,285 new plans, nearly all issued on time. Scale isn't an excuse for delays.

1. Devon: 3.2% within 20 weeks (1,277 plans) 2. Leicestershire: 4.3% (772 plans) 3. Portsmouth: 4.3% (485 plans) 4. Kingston upon Hull: 5.8% (500 plans) 5. Plymouth: 6.0% (403 plans) 6. Redbridge: 7.0% (356 plans) 7. Slough: 7.4% (312 plans) 8. Cornwall: 7.4% (914 plans) 9. Cambridgeshire: 7.7% (729 plans) 10. Stockport: 7.8% (575 plans) For LA-specific details: see /send/devon, /send/leicestershire, /send/portsmouth, /send/kingston-upon-hull-city-of, /send/plymouth, /send/redbridge, /send/slough, /send/cornwall, /send/cambridgeshire, /send/stockport. If you're applying for an EHCP in one of these areas, plan for delay. Keep copies of all correspondence, diary the 20-week deadline the moment the LA agrees to assess, and consider a formal complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman if the clock runs out. A legal deadline missed by the LA strengthens any subsequent mediation or tribunal case.

The 20-week clock only starts if the LA agrees to carry out an EHCP needs assessment in the first place. Nationally, LAs refused 25.2% of the 154,489 assessment requests made in 2024. But refusal rates vary even more wildly than timeliness. The harshest gatekeepers in 2024 (minimum 200 requests): • Walsall: 60.6% refused (1,103 requests) • Sunderland: 59.3% refused • Kent: 55.0% refused (4,001 requests, roughly 2,200 children told no) • East Sussex: 53.7% refused • Southwark: 47.7% refused The most parent-friendly (minimum 200 requests): • Waltham Forest: 0.0% refused (796 requests) • Milton Keynes: 0.0% refused (846 requests) • Leicester: 0.1% refused (883 requests) • Plymouth: 0.1% refused (1,176 requests) • Stockton-on-Tees: 2.3% refused Note Plymouth appearing on both the worst-timeliness list and the best-refusal list. It accepts nearly all requests, then takes a long time to issue the plan. Different LAs have different bottlenecks. It's worth understanding which one applies in your area so you know what to prepare for.

If your LA refuses to assess, you have a statutory right to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability). HMCTS figures show that at final hearing, parents win approximately 98% of SENDIST appeals. That statistic is often quoted and often misinterpreted. It doesn't mean 98% of all refusals end in parent wins. Many parents give up before reaching tribunal, or accept mediation outcomes. But among cases that actually reach a hearing, the LA's decision is overturned or modified in favour of the child in the vast majority of cases. If your LA refuses and you believe the refusal is wrong, seek free advice from IPSEA or SOS!SEN before deciding whether to mediate or appeal. The deadline for registering a tribunal appeal is 2 months from the LA's decision letter, so act quickly.

Some LAs are responsible for enormous numbers of live EHCPs: 1. Kent: 20,635 EHCPs 2. Hampshire: 17,784 3. Surrey: 16,069 4. Essex: 14,240 5. Hertfordshire: 12,920 Large caseloads aren't in themselves a bad sign; these are all big, populous counties. But combined with a high refusal rate or slow timeliness, scale amplifies the impact. Kent with its 20,635 maintained EHCPs and 55% refusal rate has a bigger collective cohort of families affected by process failure than almost any other LA in the country. Full stats per LA at /send/kent, /send/hampshire, /send/surrey, /send/essex, /send/hertfordshire.

Councils also differ in the types of need their EHCPs are issued for. This matters because LAs that handle a lot of one need type tend to develop real expertise in it. Across all 153 English LAs, autism (ASD) is the most common primary need for a new EHCP in 57 LAs (37.5%). Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) tops the list in 51 LAs (33.6%). Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs (SEMH) leads in 42 LAs (27.6%). Only 2 councils have Moderate Learning Difficulty as their top need. Examples: • In Nottingham, 51.2% of new EHCPs are for autism: more concentrated than the national average • In Devon, SEMH tops the list at 31.7%: a different service profile entirely • In London boroughs with high immigration, SLCN often tops the list, reflecting English-as-second-language interactions with genuine language difficulties Searching for a school for a child with autism in an area where ASD is the dominant need type should in principle mean the LA has more specialist placements, unit provision, and caseworkers familiar with autism. This isn't guaranteed, but it's a reasonable starting hypothesis worth checking with the LA directly.

If you're at the start of the EHCP process: 1. Check your LA's timeliness on /send/[your-la]. If it's a slow one, diary the 20-week deadline from day one. 2. Check the refusal rate. If it's high, gather strong supporting evidence (educational psychologist reports, specialist letters, examples of school adjustments that weren't sufficient) before submitting. 3. Check the primary need breakdown. If your child's need type is common in your area, the LA will have processed many similar cases. 4. Register for the LA's Local Offer (linked on every /send/[la] page). It's the statutory directory of services you're legally entitled to see. If you're already mid-process and things have gone wrong: 1. Contact IPSEA (free legal advice line, 0330 606 9910). 2. Complain to the LA formally if a statutory deadline has been missed. Use the LA's complaints process first. 3. Escalate to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman if the LA's response is unsatisfactory. 4. Consider tribunal appeal. Deadlines are short (2 months from the LA's decision letter) and legal aid is generally not available, but fee-free charities and specialist firms do take on cases.

All figures are from the Department for Education's Education, Health and Care plans 2025 release (published June 2025, covering the 2024 calendar year), available via explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk. We use the "All EHC plans issued" breakdown. A note on the timeliness figures: DfE publishes two versions. "All plans" gives 45.9% nationally. "Excluding exceptions" gives 46.4%, which is the DfE headline figure. This post uses the all-plans methodology throughout. The /send/[la] dashboards show the excluding-exceptions figure where available (matching DfE's 2025 headline), with the all-plans figure as a secondary reference. Both are valid; they just answer slightly different questions. We hold both for transparency. Refusal rates are calculated as requests_decided_not_to_assess divided by requests_received in the calendar year. Primary need is the most-common primary need across all maintained EHCPs in the 2024/25 school year. Annual review data is from the DfE 2025 release, published for the first time at LA level this year. We import the data directly, without modification. Our full methodology, including how we build the SEN Experience Indicator for individual schools, is in our SEN methodology post. If you spot what looks like an error on any LA page, please contact us via the PickMySchool contact page. We review every report.

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