When can a local authority refuse an EHC needs assessment?

The test you must apply before refusing

Only if the legal test is not met: the authority must assess if the child may have special educational needs and may need an EHC plan - a plan need not already look likely, so the threshold is deliberately low. The duty is set out in section 36(8) of the Children and Families Act 2014, and it has two limbs. You must secure an EHC needs assessment if you are of the opinion that the child or young person has or may have special educational needs, and that it may be necessary for special educational provision to be made through an EHC plan. A refusal is lawful only where one of those two limbs is genuinely not made out on the evidence.

The two procedural bars to a fresh request

Separately from the threshold, a request need not be considered at all in two narrow situations (section 36(6)). The duty to act on a parent or young-person request only bites where no EHC plan is already maintained for the child, and where the child has not already been assessed during the previous six months and nothing material has changed. Outside those two procedural bars, the question is always the section 36(8) threshold, not whether the school can cope or whether a plan is the likely outcome.

The threshold is lower than officers often apply it

This is the point most refusals get wrong. The words are may have SEN and may be necessary for a plan, not does have and is necessary. You cannot lawfully refuse simply because:

• there is no formal diagnosis - the test is about evidence of possible SEN and possible need for a plan, not a clinical label;
• the child is making some progress at SEN Support; or
• the school says it can manage within its own resources.

Each of those can be relevant to your reasoning, but none of them, on its own, shows the threshold is not met. Refusal to assess is the single most-appealed SEND decision and is overturned at high rates precisely because officers apply is necessary when the law asks only whether a plan may be necessary (IPSEA, refusal-to-assess appeals).

Decide and give reasons in six weeks

Where you do refuse, the decision and the reasons for it must be notified within six weeks of receiving the request (regulation 5 of the SEND Regulations 2014; SEND Code of Practice 9.11). The notice must also tell the parent or young person of their right to appeal to the SEND Tribunal. A refusal to assess is an appealable decision, so a defensible refusal is one whose reasons show, on the evidence, that the section 36(8) test is genuinely not met.

Reform watch: the 2026 Schools White Paper and Education for All Bill propose Individual Support Plans and narrowing EHCPs to the most complex needs over the coming decade. This is direction of travel only. No change to the EHCP assessment framework takes effect before September 2030, existing and incoming plan holders are protected, and the section 36(8) test above is the operative law today.

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