Adoption: Special Educational Needs
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of adopted children have an Education, Health and Care Plan compared with the national average for all children.
Answered by Georgia Gould
The number of education, health and care (EHC) plans that exceeded the statutory 20-week timescale for completion during the 2024 calendar year is available at:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans/2025. The local authority’s statutory duty is to issue 100% of new plans within 20 weeks of the request being received unless certain limited exceptions apply.
The department does not hold information on the proportion of all adopted children who have an EHC plan. As of January 2026, 23.2% of adopted pupils at state-funded schools in England had an EHC plan (7,279 pupils). This compares with 5.9% of all pupils at state-funded schools in England having an EHC plan.
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