How do LAs forecast demand for special school places?

The method, in one line

LAs forecast special school demand with the DfE’s three-step SCAP method: project the resident child population, apply a future EHCP rate, then split that across provision types. It serves the sufficiency duty (2026). SCAP is the School Capacity survey — the annual return through which you report current and forecast specialist places. The guidance that standardises those demand figures was published on 30 April 2026 for the SCAP 2026 collection, and the statutory duty it serves is the s.27 sufficiency duty in the Children and Families Act 2014.

The three steps

1. Project the resident population. Forecast the overall resident child and young-person count by age or year group, using the same pupil-projection methods you already run for mainstream place planning (cohort survival on births, migration and housing growth).
2. Apply a forecast EHCP rate. Estimate the proportion of that resident population who will hold an EHC plan, modelled from recent local trends and adjusted for your own strategy — not a straight extrapolation of past growth.
3. Apply placement rates. Split the forecast EHCPs across provision types — special school, resourced provision or unit, mainstream, and alternative provision — using your recent placement split, adjusted for any planned change in where you place.

You are free to adopt whatever approach suits local circumstances, but you must account for national and local policies that shift EHCP demand. The forecast exists to discharge a statutory duty: every authority in England has to keep the provision for children and young people with SEN or disabilities under review and consider whether it is sufficient (Children and Families Act 2014, s.27).

The data that feeds each step

Step two runs off your SEN2 caseload — the official EHC plan collection. As at January 2025, 638,700 children and young people had an EHC plan, 10.8% up on the year before, with 97,700 new plans issued in 2024. Step one runs off the school census and National Pupil Database for the cohorts, set against ONS or GLA-style population projections. Step three uses your historic placement split from the same census.

The judgement call that decides whether the forecast is credible

The forecast is only as good as the EHCP-rate assumption in step two, and that assumption is now a policy choice rather than a trend line. The DfE guidance tells you to fold your local demand-management strategy into the EHCP rate instead of projecting historic growth forward. The February 2026 Schools White Paper and the Education for All Bill (King’s Speech, 13 May 2026) propose a statutory Individual Support Plan duty for every school and narrowing EHCPs to the most complex needs by 2035 — with no changes before September 2030 and current holders protected to their next phase or to age 16. Current law is unchanged and the 12-week consultation closed on 18 May 2026, with the government’s response and the Bill still to come, but the direction of travel should pull your long-run EHCP-rate assumption down, not up.

See also what a SEND sufficiency strategy is and how local authorities commission SEND provision.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.