The short answer
Yes — Section F provision in a finalised EHCP is legally binding and the named school must deliver it; the absolute duty to secure it sits with the council, which cannot delegate it even if the school lacks resources. Section F is the part of the plan that sets out the special educational provision a child must receive. Once the plan is final, that provision has to actually happen, not be treated as a wish list.
Two duties, two bodies
The confusion most search results blur is who has to do what. In strict law the duty to secure Section F sits with the local authority (the council) under section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014. That duty is absolute and non-delegable: it is not a duty to try, and a school running out of money does not let the council off the hook. The named school is still bound into the plan in two ways. It must admit the child once it is named (s.43), and, like any school with a pupil who has SEN, it must use its best endeavours to make the provision the pupil’s needs call for (s.66). In day-to-day terms the school is the body that delivers Section F; the council is the body that must make sure it happens.
Why ‘we can’t afford it’ is not a defence
A school cannot lawfully pick and choose which parts of Section F to deliver. If the plan specifies a quantified amount of teaching assistant support or a named specialist teacher, the whole of it is owed. Under-delivering because the funding does not stretch is not a lawful option. Where the provision genuinely cannot be met from the money the school receives, the answer is not to quietly do less. It is to put the gap to the council in writing, because the council’s duty to secure the provision is the one that cannot be passed on. If the school cannot or will not secure it, the council must.
What this means in practice
- For a school or SENCO: deliver every item in Section F from the date the final plan issues, and raise any resourcing shortfall with the council in writing rather than under-delivering against the plan.
- For a parent: the SEND Tribunal decides the content of Section F, not whether it is being delivered. A delivery failure is a complaint to the council, and ultimately judicial review, because the duty to secure the provision is the council’s.
- The February 2026 Schools White Paper and the Education for All Bill propose Individual Support Plans and narrowing EHC plans toward the most complex needs in the longer term, but no changes take effect before September 2030. The s.42, s.43 and s.66 framework above is the law today and remains so for the foreseeable future.
For the related duties, see whether a school can be told to admit a child with an EHCP and what to do when you can’t deliver the provision in a pupil’s EHCP.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.