What happens if we can't deliver the provision in a pupil's EHCP?

Tell your local authority in writing immediately: the LA, not the school, holds the absolute legal duty to secure every Section F provision in an EHCP, and provision can only change by amending the plan.

Tell the local authority, in writing, today

Name the pupil, set out exactly which provision is not being delivered (the vacant teaching assistant post, the speech and language therapy that has stopped, the educational psychologist visits that are not happening), say since when, and ask the council to step in. A short email to the SEN team that ends with “please confirm how you will secure this provision while we recruit” does the job. Minute it, and keep the dated record.

Why the gap is the council’s legal problem, not yours

Where a council maintains an EHC plan, it must secure the special educational provision named in Section F (s.42 of the Children and Families Act 2014). That duty is absolute and cannot be handed to the school. Your own duty is lower: to use your best endeavours to make the provision called for by a pupil’s special educational needs (s.66). So a delivery gap does not put the school in breach of the s.42 duty, because that duty was never yours. What does expose you is staying quiet. Surface the gap and the council has to act; absorb it silently, or quietly reduce support to match your staffing or budget, and you have changed a pupil’s provision without authority.

Where each duty sits when delivery slips:

• Who holds the duty: the local authority, absolutely, under s.42. It is non-delegable.
• What the school must do: use best endeavours, tell the council in writing what cannot be delivered and why, and assist it to arrange an alternative.
• What the school must not do: drop, swap or reduce Section F provision informally because of staffing or money, or treat the plan as aspirational rather than a delivery obligation.
• What the local authority must do: secure the provision, including commissioning alternative delivery if the school cannot, regardless of its own budget pressures.

If the provision genuinely needs to change, amend the plan

Provision can only be changed lawfully by amending the EHC plan through the annual review and amendment process, never by an informal decision in school. If what Section F specifies is no longer the right support, raise it at the pupil’s annual review and ask the council to amend the plan. Until the plan is amended, the existing provision stands and the council must secure it. Remember that your Equality Act 2010 reasonable-adjustment duties run alongside the plan and are owed by the school directly, so a delivery gap does not switch those off.

If the council does not act

A s.42 failure is enforced against the local authority by judicial review, not the SEND Tribunal, which is exactly why prompt written notification protects the school: it puts the duty back where it belongs and dates your evidence. If the council does not respond or leaves the gap open, escalate in writing to a SEN manager, log the continuing breach, and point the family to IPSEA for independent advice. The February 2026 Schools White Paper proposes reshaping EHC plans over the longer term, but no changes take effect before September 2030, so the s.42 duty set out here is the law today. For the wider picture, see whether a school has to follow Section F.

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