Every EHCP Appeal Deadline in One Place

Updated 4 July 2026 · Legal citations verified against legislation.gov.uk

The EHCP system runs on clocks. Some bind the council, some bind you, and the difference matters enormously: when the council misses its deadlines your child waits, but when you miss yours you can lose a right. Because the dates are scattered across an Act, a set of regulations and tribunal practice, most parents meet each one only when it is already running. This page puts every deadline in one place, with the legal source and what each one protects, so you can see the whole architecture before any single clock catches you out.

The council's clocks: request to final plan

Three deadlines govern the journey from your request to a final plan, and they all count from the same day: the day the council receives your request for an EHC needs assessment.

• 6 weeks: the assessment decision. Regulation 5(1) of the SEND Regulations 2014 requires the council to tell you whether it will assess within 6 weeks. If it refuses, regulation 5(3) obliges it to include your appeal rights, the time limits and mediation information in the same notification. This deadline protects you from the request simply sitting in a queue.
• 16 weeks: the plan decision. If the council assesses but concludes no plan is needed, regulation 10 requires it to notify you within 16 weeks of the request. This stops an assessment drifting on without a verdict.
• 20 weeks: the final plan. Where a plan is issued, regulation 13(2) requires the final plan within 20 weeks of the request. Inside that window sits the draft stage: regulation 13(1) guarantees you at least 15 days to comment on the draft, request a school and ask for a meeting. The 15 days belong to you; the 20 weeks bind the council. The full journey is mapped in our 20 week timeline guide.

Your clock: the appeal window

Each refusal or final plan opens the door to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND), and the same window applies whether you are appealing a refusal to assess, a refusal to issue or the contents of a plan:

• 2 months from the date on the council's decision letter, or
• 1 month from the date on your mediation certificate,

whichever is later. The second limb exists because most appeals require a mediation certificate first (you only have to consider mediation by speaking to an adviser, as our mediation guide explains). If the certificate arrives near the end of the 2 months, you still get a clear month from the certificate date. Section I only appeals about the named school need no certificate, so for those the 2 month limb does the work alone.

Missed both dates? A late appeal is still possible. You must give your reasons in writing and the tribunal decides whether to accept the appeal. Tribunals understand that decision letters arrive during hospital stays and house moves, but the discretion belongs to them, not to you, so move the moment you can.

After a review: the amendment clock

Deadlines do not stop once a plan exists. If the council proposes amendments following a review, regulation 22 requires it to send you the plan with the proposed amendments and the evidence for them, and to give you at least 15 days for representations and school requests. A final amended plan then carries fresh appeal rights over sections B, F and I, with the same 2 month and 1 month window as before.

Phase transfer: the February and March dates

When a child moves between phases of education, the plan must already name the next setting well before September. Regulation 18 sets two hard dates:

• 15 February in the calendar year of transfer, for moves such as infant to junior, primary to secondary and into or out of special school phases.
• 31 March for transfers from secondary school to a post-16 institution.

By those dates the plan must have been reviewed and amended to name the next school. This is the deadline that protects a September start with support in place rather than a term of limbo. For post-16 to post-16 moves at other times of year, the review must happen at least 5 months before the move. If the named school is wrong, or no school is named, that is a section I matter and the appeal window above applies; helpfully, a section I only appeal needs no mediation certificate.

The ongoing clock: annual reviews

Section 44 of the Children and Families Act 2014 requires the council to review the plan within 12 months of it being made, and then within every 12 months of the previous review. The review must include a meeting (regulation 20) with you invited alongside the school, an LA officer, health and social care. The 12 month cycle is the mechanism that keeps a plan describing the child as they are now rather than the child they were at 7. Reviews can also trigger re-assessment, which either you or the school can request. Our annual review guide covers how to prepare.

What each deadline protects: the pattern

Notice the design. Every council deadline exists because, without it, the path of least resistance is delay: requests sitting in queues, assessments without verdicts, plans naming schools in August. Every parent deadline exists to bring disputes to the tribunal while evidence is fresh. The system is under strain, with about 25,000 SEND appeals registered in 2024/25 and 99% of decided appeals going in the family's favour, and the deadlines are the rails that keep an individual child's case moving through it. Write the relevant dates in your calendar the day each clock starts, chase breaches in writing with the regulation number cited, and the clocks work for you instead of against you.

Frequently asked questions