Why EHCP Assist exists
Councils run the EHCP process on case management systems built for the job. Most parents run it from memory, a shoebox of letters and a spreadsheet if they are lucky. That gap is why winnable cases get lost to a missed deadline nobody was tracking. EHCP Assist gives you the same kind of system, for free.
The problem: deadlines nobody is tracking
Every stage of an EHC plan has a legal deadline attached: 6 weeks to decide whether to assess, 20 weeks to issue a final plan, set windows to appeal. Councils track these on internal case systems. You get a stack of letters and the hope that you remember what happened when. When a deadline slips quietly, you lose the leverage that comes with a clear breach, and sometimes you lose the case.
What EHCP Assist is
EHCP Assist is a tool that reads your dates and tells you which deadlines apply, when they are due, and whether the council has met them, with the exact regulation behind each one. The free deadline checker covers this today, alongside guides that walk through each stage of the process. For families who want help with the whole case, Case Manager tracks everything in one place.
What EHCP Assist is not
EHCP Assist is not a law firm and we do not give legal advice on your individual case. What we give you is legal information: the dates and the rules that apply to everyone in the same position. For advice on your specific case, IPSEA and your local SENDIASS give free, individual advice, and we recommend you use them alongside this site.
England only
EHC plans are English law, set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Regulations 2014. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run different systems with different names and different rules, so EHCP Assist does not cover them.
Your privacy
The deadline checker runs entirely in your browser. The dates you enter are never sent to us or stored anywhere outside your own device. Read the full detail in our privacy policy.
Who is behind this
EHCP Assist is built by a small team who went through the legislation, the SEND Code of Practice and the regulations line by line, so the checker's dates match what the law actually says rather than what is commonly assumed. We built it because the gap between what councils must do and what parents are told is wide, and it is widest for the families with the least time and money to close it. If you want to get in touch, see our contact page.
How we check what we publish
Every deadline, test and rule on this site was verified against the primary sources before it was published: the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Regulations 2014 as published on legislation.gov.uk, and the SEND Code of Practice 2015 as published on gov.uk. Where the Code and common practice disagree, we say what the law says. Every factual claim carries its citation next to it, so you can check it yourself and quote it to your council. Where we could not verify something, it is not on the site.
Where the numbers come from
The statistics on this site come from three published sources: the Department for Education's annual "Education, health and care plans" statistical release, which also powers the council-by-council pages; His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service data on SEND Tribunal outcomes; and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's published guidance on remedies. Where a figure is an estimate calculated from a published rate, it is labelled as an estimate. We refresh the data when each new annual release is published.
If we get something wrong
Tell us and we will fix it. Email hello@ehcpassist.co.uk and a real person will read it. Families rely on these pages at difficult moments, so corrections go to the top of the list.