Moving to a new Local Authority with an EHC Plan

If you are moving to Essex and your child has an EHC plan, you must inform your old authority as soon as possible of:

• your move to Essex, the date of your move and the new address
• ask that they arrange for the EHCP to transfer to Essex
• Contact the Essex SEND Operations Team and let them know in advance of your move to Essex

If the old local authority have not yet transferred the EHC plan to Essex - you can ask Essex SEND Operations to get in contact with your old local authority for the EHCP paperwork.  Essex SEND Operations will then request a copy of your child/young person’s recent annual review and Education Health Care Plan to consider provision.  You will be allocated a SEND Operations Co-ordinator (SOCO) and he/she will keep you advised on each step of the process and a point of contact if you need to talk through your concerns. 

If it is no longer practicable for your child/young person to attend the school or college named in Section I (perhaps because it is too far away) then Essex LA must arrange for child/young person to attend another appropriate school until they review and amend the EHC plan.   

Essex SEND Operations may also request any reports from services involved with your child/young person and this will help them plan the support he/she will need. The information evidencing your child/young person’s needs must be as detailed as possible to enable the Essex LA to make the appropriate decision. 

Essex LA will have six weeks to notify you that the EHC plan has been transferred, and to let you know when it is going to review the EHC plan. 

Essex LA has the same legal duties as if they had issued the EHC plan themselves. The most important duty is to ensure the child/young person receives all of the special educational provision specified in Section F of her EHC plan.  The plan must be reviewed within either 12 months from the EHC plan being made or last reviewed, or 3 months from the date of the transfer, whichever is the later.  Essex may decide that a new Education, Health & Care needs assessment is necessary, and if so they will discuss this with you.

The legal requirement for the new LA to start making the provision in the EHC plan is set out in Regulation 15 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.

 

Essex Schools list

If you are moving to a new Local Authority area, the EHC plan will need to transfer to the new local authority. 

You will need to inform the Essex SEND Operations Team in advance that you plan to move out of Essex, including your moving date and new address. The new local authority will need a copy of your child’s EHC plan and the most recent Annual Review paperwork.

Essex SEND Operations should arrange for this to be shared, but we recommend keeping in contact with them to ensure this happens in a timely way

Contact details for Essex SEND Operations Team

The legal requirement for the new LA to start making the provision in the EHC plan is set out in Regulation 15 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.

If you’re in the process of an EHC needs assessment, your old authority must transfer all the information and advice received to the new local authority (Essex SEND Operations Team) for their consideration.

SEND Code of Practice states

9.162 Some children and young people will move between local authority areas while they are being assessed for a plan. The new authority in such cases should decide whether it needs to carry out an EHC needs assessment themselves and it must decide whether to undertake an EHC needs assessment if it receives a request from the child’s parent or the young person. The new authority should take account of the fact that the old authority decided to carry out an EHC needs assessment when making its decision. If it decides to do so then it should use the information already gathered as part of its own EHC needs assessment. Depending on how far the assessment had progressed, this information should help the new authority complete the assessment more quickly than it would otherwise have done.