Bristol EHCPs and problems with Send in the city
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Bristol EHCP Timeliness ‘Significantly’ Behind

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Bristol EHCP crisis continues for Send families

Bristol Send children and young people are continuing to struggle through their education. This is due to Bristol City Council being ‘significantly behind’ managing the Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) process. It’s an issue that’s plagued the council since 2016. In that time there have been four Executive Directors of Education and five Directors of Education.

In November 2019, Ofsted found the EHCP process to be ‘dysfunctional’. However, in November 2022, Ofsted Inspector Phil Minns found there had been real improvements to the’ timeliness and quality of EHC plans’ saying it had ‘significantly improved’.

But families in Bristol are not feeling the benefits confidently observed by Phil Minns.

By law, EHCPs must be issued within 20 weeks. According to the Quarterly Performance Report (Q1 2024/25) for Strategy and Resources Committee this month, Bristol City Council was only managing to hit 33 per cent of plans issued on time between January to March 2024. This was lower than the council’s own internal target of 50 per cent.

The fall to 33 per cent is even worse than in the Quarterly Performance Progress Report (Quarter 1 2021/22) presented to Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (OSMB) in October 2021.

This stated: ‘‘The percentage of Educational Health Care Plans that are issued within timescales continues to improve steadily and stands at 42.1per cent. Early indications are that this will improve further as the year progresses.’

As well as being in a worse position than three years ago, Bristol has also failed to get to grips with the crisis in specialist places.

The 2024 papers puts the blame for the delays on families due to a ‘sharp rise in demand outstripping delivery capacity.’

This statement is somewhat disingenuous when looking at the Finance Outturn Report – Period 5/Quarter 2 2024/25 – a paper on the agenda for the same meeting.

The appendix paper for the report from Children and Young People Policy Committee more accurately says: ‘The forecast overspend is due to the increasing numbers of children and young people with Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) being placed in high-cost Independent Non-Maintained Schools resulting from a current lack of sufficiency of local maintained provision and delays in the development of new local provision resulting in some of this new provision not now becoming available for use until 2025/26.’


It’s not just EHCPs that are causing concern in Bristol. The council is also failing to hit targets around expanding the number of specialist school places. This has also seen the development of a new team aiming to bring Bristol pupils back into the city from independent schools and out of area provision. An emphasis on this work is to return children to mainstream education.

Further concern around the direction of Bristol’s Send system has been growing around the city’s Safety Valve. It’s currently being legally challenged in a case scheduled for December 2024.

Bristol send crisis and rally
Bristol EHCP and Send Crisis protest back in 2019

The Safety Valve issue is being raised in this month’s Member Forum.

Councillor Tim Kent, Hengrove and Whitchurch Park has asked for further details on the implementation of the Safety Valve agreement.

The preliminary answer from the council was:

Since March 2024 the Council has made the following progress against the conditions of the SVA.

  • SEND and Inclusion Strategy consultation is underway – decision scheduled at Children and Young People Committee early 2025.
  • A multi-agency SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) governance framework established at executive and delivery level. ToR approved and Delivery Plan created.
  • A £1m early intervention fund (EIF) has been launched – comprehensive SENCo training package delivered.
  • Digital SEND tool launched to support whole school provision mapping.
  • A £1m SEND Outreach team will launch in term 3 of the 2024/25 academic year.
  • Improved SEND School Improvement offer in development.
  • A SEND Placemaking team has been created to oversee the delivery of SEND Wave 3. A capital budget of over £10m has been identified with a target of 95 new places by September 2025.

Bristol Send Justice’s Sally Kent, has also raised concerns around the EHCP statistics in the papers.

Writing on X today, Kent raised the current Send issues plaguing the city’s families, including a lack of specialist places, behaviour policies, long waits for autism and ADHD assessments.

She also highlighted the pressure it’s putting on families which is causing family breakdowns, divorce and parents having to stop working to support their child at home.

Sally Kent of Bristol Send Justice highlights problems with Bristol EHCPs and the Send system

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