An Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) is the strongest form of support in the SEND system in England. It is a legal document that sets out a child or young person’s needs and the support a council must put in place to meet them. More children have one than ever before, and the number is rising fast.
In January 2025 there were 638,745 EHCPs in force in England. That is up almost 11% in a single year, and nearly double the number in 2019. This report sets out what the Department for Education’s official figures show about how many children have a plan, how quickly that is growing, and which needs the plans are for.
A near doubling in six years
The growth is not a recent spike. The number of plans in force has risen every year, and the climb has been steep.
DfE, Education, health and care plans, 2025
Plans in force rose from 354,000 in January 2019 to 638,745 in January 2025, around 1.8 times as many. The flow of new plans is rising too: councils issued 97,747 new plans in 2024, up 15.8% on the year, after receiving 154,489 requests for an assessment.
If it feels harder to get a plan, and slower, the numbers are part of the reason. Demand is at record levels and councils are under real strain. That pressure does not change your child’s rights or the legal deadlines, but it does mean it is worth knowing the process and the timescales before you start.
What the plans are for
EHCPs record a child’s primary type of need. A small number of needs account for most plans.
DfE, Education, health and care plans, 2025
Autism is the single most common primary need, recorded on 31.5% of all plans, or 201,183 children. Speech, language and communication needs come next, then social, emotional and mental health. Together those three needs account for almost three quarters of every EHCP in the country.
A “primary need” label is an administrative category, not the whole picture. Many children have more than one area of need, and the label recorded is just the one the council treats as the main one. It does not limit the support a plan can include. A plan must cover all of your child’s needs, whatever the headline category says.
Who has a plan
Plans are concentrated in the primary and early secondary years, but they reach right across childhood and into early adulthood.
DfE, Education, health and care plans, 2025
About seven in ten plans are for children aged 5 to 15. Only 4.3% are for children under 5, which reflects how long it can take for needs to be identified and a plan to be agreed. At the other end, a quarter of plans are for young people aged 16 to 25, a reminder that an EHCP can continue well beyond school if the young person is still in education or training.
What this means for your family
Record demand is the backdrop to almost every SEND battle parents face right now. It does not weaken your position, but it does mean the system is stretched, so knowing the rules matters more than ever.
The legal deadline has not moved. Once you ask for an assessment, the council has 20 weeks to issue a final plan if it agrees to assess and the child meets the criteria. Busy councils do not get an extension, and “we are very busy” is not a lawful reason to refuse or delay.
- If you are weighing up whether to start, what an EHCP is and whether your child needs one explains who plans are for.
- When you are ready, how to request an EHC needs assessment walks through the request and the timescales.
- To see how long plans are actually taking where you live, see our report on EHCP timeliness by council.
- If a council refuses to assess, do not stop there. What to do when a council refuses to assess covers your right to challenge it.
Methodology and sources
All the figures in this report are from the Department for Education’s official statistics release Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2025, published on 26 June 2025. The count of plans in force, the breakdown by primary need and the breakdown by age are taken at the January 2025 snapshot. The figures for new plans issued and for requests for an assessment cover the 2024 calendar year.
The headline of 638,745 plans is the published England total; the need and age breakdowns each sum to that total. The statement that plans are around 1.8 times the 2019 level is our calculation, dividing the January 2025 total by the January 2019 total of 353,995. The share for the three most common needs (73.5%) is our calculation, adding autism, speech and language needs, and social, emotional and mental health. The “all other needs” bar groups the seven smaller need categories. Note that the share of plans recorded as autism (31.5%) is not the same as the share of all pupils with SEN whose main need is autism, which uses a different and larger population; this report is about EHCPs specifically. Data accessed June 2026.