Introduction
The local authority will receive the annual review report and have no more than 4 weeks to inform the family of their decision based on the documentation and attached evidence.
The local authority will make one of these following decisions:
Maintain the plan as it is
The family or child or young person will be informed of this decision in writing within 4 weeks of the meeting and a new version of the plan will be dated and issued. Following the guidance in the SEND Code of Practice 2015 that ‘not all plans are expected to be amended on a very frequent basis’, the local authority may decide to maintain the plan in its current form, despite the annual review report recommending that amendments need to be made. Like the process for maintaining a plan, the local authority will date and issue a new version of the plan.
Amend the plan
Once sharing their decision to agree to amend the plan, the local authority will create a revised plan called an ‘Amendment Notice’ and send it to families and the child or young person for their comments as soon as possible. New sections to be added to the plan will be written in bold, and strikethrough will be used to show sections that are to be removed. From the date that the Amendment Notice was sent to families, the local authority then has a total of 8 weeks to issue a final amended plan (see table below).
| Week 1 | Week 2 to 3 | Week 4 to 6 | Week 7 to 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1Amendment Notice issued | Week 2 to 3Consultation on Amendment Notice | Week 4 to 6Educational setting consultation and decision making process | Week 7 to 8Final EHC Plan issued |
| Week 1Initial phone call offered | Week 2 to 3 | Week 4 to 6Follow up call offered if change of placement agreed | Week 7 to 8 |
Cease the plan
The annual review process may result in the decision that the child or young person no longer needs an EHC plan, because special educational provision is no longer needed. When deciding whether young people aged 19 or over require special educational provision, the local authority must take account of whether the education or training outcomes specified in the EHC plan have been achieved.