(UK) Rutland: "[$13M] overspend on its high needs education plan"; "growing each year"
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Feb 20, 2026, LincsOnline: Number of parents asking for a special educational needs plan in Rutland rises
A school’s education director has raised concerns about the failure of a council to meet statutory targets for support plans for children with special needs as less than a fifth are being completed in the legal timeframe.
Educational Health Plans (EHCPS) are a legal agreement between a local authority and parents about what additional support is needed to meet their child’s education needs.
A recent report revealed that at the end of September only 18 per cent of EHCPs carried out by Rutland County Council, as the local education authority, are being done within the 20 week legal timings. At the council’s strategic scrutiny meeting last week (November 27) Canon Andrew Read, who works for the academy chain Peterbough Diocese Education Trust , said: “I sit on a number of other council bodies as well where this thought occurs to me, and I think it's important to say, isn't it that there is a legal minimum requirement for 20 weeks for EHCP turnaround? . . .
Canon Andrew Read questioned Rutland County Council's EHCP record
The EHCP rate has worsened in recent months. At the end of the most recent academic year in August, the authority had 433 EHCP plans for Rutland children and new data shows they are expecting another 22 to be granted.
The authority is heading towards a £10m [$13M] overspend on its high needs education plan, which has been growing each year. Many local authorities are in the same position and at last week’s budget the treasury annnouced the SEN deficits would be taken on by the government, but it is unclear where it is to be funded from, with some fears it could impact on education budgets.
Responding to Canon Read the council’s head legal officer Amanda Wakefield said the EHCP ‘pipeline is extremely full and its getting fuller’.
She said: “We are very, very open and honest about it and it's extremely important that we shine a light on those areas.
“I think it's probably impossible to overstate the amount of work and attention that is being directed at overcoming these issues. And although that this still is a very, very low statistic there, what you cannot see here is the improvement journey, and that is something that we will report in the next quarter as well, and the quarter following that, because it is ongoing very, very hard work, and it's a very, very difficult issue.”
The authority has recently set up a two-year fixed-term increase in staffing capacity within the SEND team to meet rising demand for EHCP assessments and process them more quickly. . . .
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