EHCP 20 week deadline complaint letter template

When to use this letter, and when not to

Use this letter when a statutory deadline in the EHC process has passed and the council has not done what the regulation requires. It is a formal stage 1 corporate complaint, not a chase email, and it is deliberately written to be readable by an Ombudsman investigator later.

Use it if:

• The six week decision on whether to assess is late (regulation 5(1)).
• The sixteen week decision not to issue a plan is late (regulation 10(1)).
• The twenty week final plan is late (regulation 13(2)).
• Chasing emails have produced nothing, or produced a promise that then slipped.

Do not use it if:

• The deadline has not actually passed yet. Count carefully from the date the council received your request. Week 20 is day 140. Thefree deadline checker does the arithmetic and shows the regulation behind each date.
• Your complaint is really about the content of a decision. If the council has refused to assess, refused to issue a plan, or issued a plan you disagree with, that is a Tribunal matter, not a complaint. Start with therefusal to assess letter or thedraft plan response.
• A final plan exists and the provision in Section F is not being delivered.That is a breach of the absolute duty in section 42(2) of the Children and Families Act 2014. A complaint may help, but a pre-action letter before judicial review is usually the lever that works. Take free advice on that one.
• Something urgent is about to be lost. If your child is out of school or a September placement is about to be missed, do not spend three months in a complaints process. Complain and get advice on judicial review at the same time.

Which deadline has been breached

All three of these clocks start on the same day: the day the council received your request for an EHC needs assessment, or the day it otherwise became responsible for your child. They run at the same time, not one after another. Pick the row that fits your case and use that regulation in the letter.

A separate six week duty sits on the professionals rather than the council: where the council asks a body to co-operate in the assessment, that body must comply within six weeks of the request (regulation 8(1)). That is the deadline behind most late educational psychology reports. It does not excuse the council. The 20 week duty in regulation 13(2) is the council's, and a late report from someone else is not one of the lawful exemptions.

The four exemptions, and why they rarely apply

Regulation 13(3) allows the 20 week deadline to be missed only where it is impractical for one of four reasons set out in regulation 10(4)(a) to (d). The same four grounds govern the six week deadline (regulation 5(4)) and the sixteen week deadline (regulation 10(4)). There are no others.

One more thing worth quoting at the council: paragraph 9.43 of the SEND Code of Practice says that even where an exemption applies, the remaining steps must still be completed within their prescribed periods, and that parents should be told the council is relying on an exemption. An exemption is not a general pause on the case.

The letter

Copy everything in the box. Anything in [SQUARE BRACKETS] is for you to fill in or delete, and you should delete the two duty paragraphs that do not apply to your case.

[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR ADDRESS]
[POSTCODE]
[YOUR EMAIL]   [YOUR PHONE]

Corporate Complaints Team
[COUNCIL NAME]
[COUNCIL ADDRESS]

[TODAY'S DATE]

By email to: [COMPLAINTS EMAIL ADDRESS]
Copied to: [SEN TEAM EMAIL], [CASE OFFICER EMAIL]

Dear Sir or Madam

FORMAL COMPLAINT, STAGE 1: FAILURE TO MEET A STATUTORY EHC DEADLINE
Child: [CHILD'S FULL NAME], date of birth [DD/MM/YYYY]
Your reference: [SEN REFERENCE NUMBER]

I am making a formal stage 1 complaint about [COUNCIL NAME]'s failure to meet a
statutory deadline in [CHILD'S FIRST NAME]'s education, health and care process.
Please log this as a corporate complaint and send me a complaint reference.

THE DATES

   Request for an EHC needs assessment received by you ....... [DATE]
   Your decision whether to assess was due (6 weeks) ......... [DATE]
   Your decision was actually sent ........................... [DATE / NOT YET]
   Final EHC plan was due (20 weeks) ......................... [DATE]
   Final EHC plan issued ..................................... [DATE / NOT YET]

As at today, [NUMBER] days have passed since that deadline.

[LIST HERE, WITH DATES, EVERY TIME YOU HAVE CHASED: for example
 "I emailed [OFFICER] on 3 March, 24 March and 15 April 2026. I received no
 reply to the first two. On 20 April I was told the case was 'with the panel'.
 Nothing has been issued since."]

THE DUTY YOU HAVE NOT MET

[KEEP ONLY THE PARAGRAPH THAT APPLIES. DELETE THE OTHERS.]

Six weeks. Regulation 5(1) of the Special Educational Needs and Disability
Regulations 2014 requires the authority to notify me of its decision whether or
not it is necessary to secure an EHC needs assessment as soon as practicable,
and in any event within 6 weeks of receiving my request.

Sixteen weeks. Regulation 10(1) requires the authority, where it decides
following an assessment not to issue an EHC plan, to notify me as soon as
practicable and in any event within 16 weeks of my request.

Twenty weeks. Regulation 13(2) requires the authority to send the finalised EHC
plan to me, to the institution named in the plan and to the responsible
commissioning body as soon as practicable, and in any event within 20 weeks of
receiving my request.

THE EXEMPTIONS DO NOT APPLY

I am aware that regulation 13(3) permits the 20 week deadline to be missed only
where it is impractical for one of the four reasons set out in regulation
10(4)(a) to (d), and that the same four reasons govern the 6 week deadline under
regulation 5(4). Those reasons are:

   (a) advice was requested from a head teacher or principal during the period
       beginning one week before a school closure of at least four continuous
       weeks and ending one week before the school reopens;

   (b) the same, in relation to advice requested from a relevant early years
       provider;

   (c) exceptional personal circumstances affecting the child, the child's
       parent or the young person during that period; or

   (d) the child, the child's parent or the young person being absent from the
       authority's area for a continuous period of at least four weeks during
       that period.

None of those applies in this case. [IF ONE MIGHT ARGUABLY APPLY, SAY SO HERE
AND EXPLAIN WHY IT DOES NOT COVER THE WHOLE DELAY.]

Staff shortages, caseload pressure, vacancies, service restructuring, panel
scheduling and waiting times for educational psychology advice are not among
those four reasons and do not excuse the delay.

If the authority considers that an exemption does apply, please state in
writing: which ground, on what facts, the exact period it is said to cover, and
the date on which the authority decided to rely on it. I would also draw your
attention to paragraph 9.43 of the SEND Code of Practice, which states that even
where an exemption applies the remaining steps must still be completed within
their prescribed periods, and that parents should be told the authority is
relying on an exemption.

THE EFFECT ON MY CHILD

[SET OUT THE REAL IMPACT IN PLAIN TERMS. For example: [CHILD'S FIRST NAME] has
been out of school since [DATE] and is receiving no specialist provision;
[HE/SHE] has missed the consultation round for a September placement; the
support recommended in the [REPORT] of [DATE] has still not started; I have
taken [NUMBER] days of unpaid leave.]

WHAT I AM ASKING FOR

1. Written acknowledgement of this complaint with a complaint reference, within
   your published timescale.

2. A dated remedy plan setting out: the date each outstanding piece of advice
   will be received, the date the draft plan will be issued, the date the final
   plan will be issued, and the officer responsible for each step.

3. Written confirmation of whether the authority relies on any exemption under
   regulation 10(4), and if so which one and on what facts.

4. An explanation of how this delay occurred, and what the authority is doing to
   ensure the remaining statutory steps are not also missed.

5. Consideration of a remedy for the special educational provision my child has
   lost during the period of delay.

IF THIS IS NOT REMEDIED

If I do not receive a satisfactory response within your published complaints
timescale, or if the remedy plan you provide is not met, I will refer this
matter to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Delay of this kind is maladministration, and there is no right of appeal against
it, so it falls within the Ombudsman's jurisdiction under Part 3 of the Local
Government Act 1974. I am giving the authority the opportunity to put it right
first, as the Ombudsman expects.

Please confirm receipt of this complaint.

Yours faithfully

[YOUR NAME]
Parent of [CHILD'S FULL NAME]

How to adapt it

1. Check the deadline really has passed. Count from the date the councilreceived your request, not the date you posted it. Week 6 is day 42, week 16 is day 112, week 20 is day 140, in calendar days. Get this wrong and the whole letter loses its force. The deadline checker works it out for you.
2. Delete the duty paragraphs that do not apply. The letter offers three. Keep one. A complaint that cites three regulations, two of which are irrelevant, reads as a template and gets answered as one.
3. Fill the date table with real dates and nothing else. No commentary in that block. The dates are the argument.
4. List every chase, with its date. This is what turns "the council is late" into "the council was late and ignored four emails", which is the difference between a delay and maladministration.
5. Be honest about the exemptions. If your child genuinely was out of the area for five weeks, say so and explain why it does not cover a six month delay. A complaint that overstates gets picked apart. One that concedes the small point and holds the big one does not.
6. Make the impact section concrete. "This has been very stressful" carries no weight with an Ombudsman investigator. "Out of school since 12 January, no tuition arranged, 84 sessions missed" does, and it is what remedies are calculated from.
7. Send it to the complaints team, not the SEN team. Copy the SEN team and the case officer so they know it exists, but address it to corporate complaints so it enters a system with its own timescales.

What happens next

1. Acknowledgement and a stage 1 response. Most councils acknowledge within a few working days and respond in around 10 to 20 working days. The two stage structure is council policy rather than something the SEND regulations require, so check your council's published complaints procedure for its actual timescales and hold it to those.
2. Stage 2, if stage 1 does not fix it. Ask for escalation in writing and say why the stage 1 answer was inadequate. Usually that is one of two things: it did not address the regulation, or it promised a date that then slipped.
3. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Once the council's own process is exhausted, or it has plainly had a reasonable opportunity and done nothing, the Ombudsman can investigate under Part 3 of the Local Government Act 1974. It cannot look at matters you could take to the Tribunal (section 26(6)(a)), but pure delay is not appealable, so it is squarely in scope. It regularly recommends apologies, firm deadlines and financial remedies for provision lost during a delay.
4. Judicial review, where waiting is not an option. If a child is out of school or a placement deadline is about to be lost, a complaint that takes three months is not a remedy. A pre-action letter before claim often resolves these cases without proceedings. Get free advice from IPSEA before going down this road.

While the complaint runs, keep the case moving on its own terms. Note the date the final plan should have arrived, keep chasing the outstanding advice, and read ourguide to a missed EHCP deadline for the full route map. When the draft plan finally lands you will have 15 days to respond, so it is worth reading the draft plan response template before it arrives rather than after.