A parent and child walking towards Havannah First School in Newcastle Great Park. The child is carrying a school backpack, illustrating the challenges families can face when seeking educational support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
Newcastle City Council has made significant progress in reducing delays for children needing special educational support, but new figures show that more than half of Education, Health and Care Plans were still being issued late in July 2026. For families in Newcastle Great Park and across the city, the improvements are welcome — but the continuing delays raise serious questions about how quickly children can access the help they need.
Families of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Newcastle are facing shorter waits for crucial education assessments, according to new figures reported to councillors.
However, despite a substantial improvement over the past year, the majority of new Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) issued in July still failed to meet the statutory 20-week deadline.
Newcastle City Council has faced criticism over lengthy waits for SEND assessments, with some families previously experiencing delays of many months.
At one point in early 2024, the average time taken to produce an EHCP had reached 41 weeks — more than double the normal legal timescale.
The latest figures suggest that efforts to tackle the backlog are beginning to have an effect.
But for parents waiting for an assessment, a school placement or specialist educational support, the distinction between an improving service and a timely one remains important.
Only 47.1% of plans were issued on time in July
Figures reported to Newcastle councillors during October reveal that 47.1% of EHCPs were issued within the statutory 20-week period in July 2026.
That represents a substantial improvement compared with September 2025, when just 11.9% were completed within the deadline.
However, it also means that 52.9% of plans issued in July were late.
In other words, despite the improvement, more than one in two of the affected children and young people still waited longer than the normal legal limit.
The proportion of EHCPs completed on time between January and July 2026 was 31.4%, compared with 19.1% during 2025.
In 2023 and 2024, the figure had been below 10%.
These figures show that Newcastle's performance has improved considerably from its lowest point.
But they also demonstrate how far the Council still has to go before meeting its statutory responsibilities consistently.
How have Newcastle's EHCP waiting times changed?
The latest figures show significant improvements in Newcastle City Council's EHCP assessment performance, although many families are still waiting longer than the legal deadline.
📋 EHCPs issued within 20 weeks
❌ September 2025: 11.9%
✅ July 2026: 47.1%
⏳ Average completion time
📅 September 2025: 30 weeks
📅 July 2026: 22 weeks
📉 Assessments taking longer than 30 weeks
🔴 October 2024: 80 assessments
🟢 July 2026: 12 assessments
✅ Assessments waiting more than one year
The Council reports that none are currently pending for more than a year.
What do these figures mean?
Although performance has improved considerably, 52.9% of EHCPs issued in July 2026 still missed the normal statutory 20-week deadline.
The average completion time has fallen by eight weeks, while the number of assessments taking longer than 30 weeks has dropped significantly.
The improvements are encouraging, but Newcastle City Council still has work to do to ensure children and families receive timely decisions about educational support.
What is an Education, Health and Care Plan?
An Education, Health and Care Plan, commonly known as an EHCP, is a legal document for children and young people up to the age of 25 who need special educational provision beyond what is ordinarily available.
It describes their special educational needs and the additional support required to meet them.
Depending on the individual child's circumstances, this could include specialist teaching, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, communication support or other educational provision.
An EHCP can also identify the school or other educational setting a child should attend.
For some families, the plan plays a critical role in making sure support is clearly specified and that the responsible organisations understand their duties.
However, not every child with SEND needs an EHCP.
Many children receive appropriate support through their nursery, school or college without requiring a statutory plan.
The important question is whether the child's individual needs can be adequately met through the support already available.
Why does the 20-week deadline matter?
Under the statutory EHCP process in England, local authorities must normally issue a final plan within 20 weeks of receiving a request for an Education, Health and Care needs assessment, where a plan is required.
There are limited exceptions to this timeframe in specified circumstances.
The process includes several stages.
Within six weeks: The local authority must decide whether to carry out an EHC needs assessment.
By 16 weeks: Following an assessment, the authority must notify the family if it decides not to issue a plan. If a plan is needed, work on the draft proceeds.
Within 20 weeks: Where an EHCP is required, the final plan should be issued.
Parents and young people must also have at least 15 days to comment on a draft plan.
These deadlines are intended to prevent children and young people from being left waiting indefinitely for decisions about their educational needs.
The national charity IPSEA, which provides advice on SEND law, has highlighted court judgments confirming that these statutory deadlines are mandatory unless a specific legal exception applies.
This means that delays caused by staffing difficulties or pressure on services do not automatically remove a council's legal responsibilities.
Why can delays have such an impact on families?
An EHCP assessment can involve contributions from several different professionals, including educational psychologists, teachers, healthcare specialists and social care staff.
Gathering that information can take time.
But when deadlines are repeatedly missed, families may face uncertainty about the support their child will receive and whether a particular educational placement can meet their needs.
Some children may be waiting for a decision about additional provision at school.
Others may have complex needs requiring several services to work together.
For parents, the process can involve repeated correspondence, meetings and requests for updates, sometimes alongside the challenges of supporting a child whose educational needs are not yet fully understood.
There is also a wider concern about the potential impact on children's learning and wellbeing.
The longer appropriate support is delayed, the greater the risk that educational difficulties may become more entrenched.
However, it is important to recognise that an outstanding EHCP application does not automatically mean a child is receiving no help.
Schools and local authorities still have responsibilities towards children with SEND while an assessment is under way.
Parents concerned that their child is not receiving suitable educational support should raise the issue with their school or setting rather than assuming they must wait for the final EHCP.
What does Newcastle City Council say?
Councillor Christine Morrissey, Newcastle City Council's Liberal Democrat cabinet member responsible for children, has welcomed the improvement.
She said that improving the timeliness and quality of Education, Health and Care Plans remains a key priority.
According to the Council, the progress reflects changes to the way its SEND teams operate.
These include:
A new workstream model for organising cases.
Improvements to planning educational placements.
Closer working relationships with schools and partner organisations.
Efforts to reduce longstanding assessments.
Measures intended to improve communication and responsiveness to families.
Councillor Morrissey acknowledged that further work remains necessary.
The Council's position is that more children and young people are now receiving decisions and support more quickly than they were previously.
That progress deserves recognition.
However, the latest figures show that the authority is still failing to meet the normal statutory deadline in a majority of cases.
A recent Ombudsman finding highlights the consequences of delays
The problem is not simply one of missed performance targets.
In September 2026, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman upheld a complaint concerning Newcastle City Council's handling of a child's education and EHCP.
The investigation found fault in relation to delays in producing the plan, the provision of alternative education when the child could not attend school, and the delivery of specialist provision.
The Council agreed to apologise and make payments recognising the impact of the identified failures.
This was an individual case and should not be taken as evidence that every family experiences the same problems.
Nevertheless, it demonstrates that failures involving EHCP timeliness can have consequences beyond administrative inconvenience.
It also reinforces the importance of families knowing their rights when agreed educational support is delayed or not provided.
What does this mean for Great Park families?
Newcastle Great Park is home to growing numbers of families, with children attending schools across the development and surrounding areas.
Any difficulties in Newcastle's SEND assessment system can therefore affect local households, regardless of which school their child attends.
Parents may be seeking additional support for a child in mainstream education, an assessment of complex needs or guidance about an appropriate school placement.
Families may also be preparing for major educational transitions, such as moving from primary to secondary school.
Those transitions can make timely decisions particularly important.
The latest figures do not provide a separate breakdown for Newcastle Great Park, and there is no evidence in the published information that local children face longer or shorter waiting times than those elsewhere in Newcastle.
However, the citywide figures are directly relevant because Great Park families generally fall under Newcastle City Council's SEND arrangements.
For affected households, the central question is straightforward:
Will the improvements now translate into reliable decisions and support within the legal deadline?
How can parents request an EHCP assessment in Newcastle?
Parents and carers do not have to wait for a school to submit a request on their behalf.
Newcastle City Council confirms that a parent, carer or eligible young person can request an Education, Health and Care needs assessment directly.
Requests can be made through the Council's SEND Portal, by email or through discussions with a school's Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO).
The Council recommends using the portal because families can track their assessment, view documents and receive messages.
Newcastle EHCP application information:
Email for assessment requests:
Postal address:
SEND Support, Assessment and Review Team
Newcastle City Council
Civic Centre
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8QH
Families should keep a record of when their request was submitted or acknowledged, as this is important when checking the statutory timetable.
What should you do if your child's EHCP is delayed?
Parents who are concerned about an outstanding assessment can take several practical steps.
1. Check when the request was received
The normal 20-week timeframe runs from the original request for assessment, not simply from the date the Council decides to begin the assessment.
2. Check the progress of the application
Use Newcastle's SEND Portal or contact the SEN Caseworker Duty Line.
Ask which stage the application has reached and what remains outstanding.
3. Request an explanation in writing
If the statutory deadline has passed, ask the Council to explain the delay, whether it believes a legal exception applies and when the relevant decision or final plan is expected.
4. Speak to your child's school or college
Discuss what SEN support is already in place and whether it remains sufficient while the assessment continues.
5. Seek independent advice
Newcastle SENDIASS can provide free and impartial guidance about the EHCP process, parental rights, appeals and discussions with the Council.
Families can also obtain information from IPSEA, a national charity specialising in SEND law.
6. Consider a formal complaint or other appropriate challenge
Where there is an unreasonable delay or a failure to meet a legal duty, families can seek advice about Newcastle City Council's complaints procedure and other available remedies.
Some decisions, such as refusing an EHC assessment or refusing to issue a plan, carry rights of appeal to the SEND Tribunal.
An overdue assessment itself is not necessarily something that can be appealed to the Tribunal in the same way as a formal refusal.
For delay complaints, other routes may be relevant, including a formal complaint and, in appropriate circumstances, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
Independent advice can help families identify the most suitable route for their situation.
Newcastle's SEN Caseworker Duty Line
Newcastle City Council operates a central contact service for questions about EHCP assessments and reviews.
Telephone: 0191 277 4650
Email: SENCaseworkers@newcastle.gov.uk
The Council says enquiries are logged and directed to the appropriate member of the SEND team.
Where an enquiry cannot be resolved immediately, it aims to respond by the end of the next working day or provide an acknowledgement and follow-up.
Official information:
Free support through Newcastle SENDIASS
The Newcastle Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) offers free, confidential and impartial advice.
It supports parents and carers, as well as children and young people with SEND up to the age of 25.
The service can help families understand EHCP assessments, prepare for meetings, communicate with schools and the local authority, and understand their options when disagreements arise.
Telephone: 0191 211 6255
Email: SENDIASSadmin@newcastle.gov.uk
Website:
https://www.newcastlesendiass.co.uk/
The service has reported high demand, so families may not always receive an immediate response.
Another way for parents to have their voices heard
Newcastle also has a Parent Carer Forum, made up of volunteer parents and carers of children and young people with SEND.
The forum works with the Council, education providers and health services to share families' experiences and influence the development of local services.
Families wishing to highlight wider concerns about assessment waiting times, communication or gaps in provision can contact the forum.
Email: contact@newcastlepcf.co.uk
More information:
https://childrenandfamiliesnewcastle.org.uk/send-local-offer/your-voice/newcastle-parent-carer-forum
Families can also find peer support through Newcastle organisation Skills for People, which supports parents and carers of children with additional needs.
Is Newcastle finally turning a corner on SEND assessments?
The latest figures provide genuine grounds for cautious optimism.
Going from fewer than 12% of EHCPs being completed on time to more than 47% in less than a year is a significant improvement.
The reduction in assessments exceeding 30 weeks is another encouraging sign.
And eliminating cases that have been waiting more than a year, according to the Council's current figures, is an important milestone.
However, that progress needs to be judged against the legal standard families are entitled to expect.
The 20-week deadline is not an optional target that can be disregarded whenever demand increases.
It exists because timely decisions about educational support matter.
For Newcastle to demonstrate sustained improvement, the Council will need to show that the latest results are maintained and that the remaining overdue cases continue to fall.
It is also important that improving the speed of decisions does not come at the expense of the quality of plans or the suitability of the support specified.
Families need both timely assessments and effective provision.
The questions that still need answering
The latest figures leave several important questions for Newcastle City Council.
Will the proportion of EHCPs completed within 20 weeks continue to increase?
How quickly does the Council expect to reach consistent compliance with the statutory deadline?
What support is available for children whose assessments remain overdue?
How is the Council ensuring that improvements in processing times are matched by suitable educational placements and support?
And how will it measure families' experiences of the revised SEND system?
Clear, regularly published answers would help parents understand whether progress is continuing.
Have your say
The Great Park Gazette welcomes the reported improvements in Newcastle's SEND assessment performance.
However, with more than half of EHCPs still being issued late in July, there is considerable work left to do.
For parents and carers in Newcastle Great Park, the figures may reflect experiences they know all too well.
Others may have seen improvements in communication or received decisions more quickly in recent months.
Are you currently waiting for an EHCP assessment or final plan?
Have you noticed improvements in Newcastle's SEND services, or are you still experiencing difficulties?
We welcome residents' views and experiences through the Great Park Residents Group.
Please avoid sharing children's names, diagnoses, personal educational records or other sensitive details in public comments.
The Great Park Gazette will continue to follow developments affecting families across Newcastle Great Park.
Sources and further information
Newcastle City Council – How to request an EHCP assessment
Newcastle City Council – EHCP assessment stages and timescales
Newcastle SENDIASS
https://www.newcastlesendiass.co.uk/
Independent Provider of Special Education Advice (IPSEA)
Newcastle Parent Carer Forum
https://childrenandfamiliesnewcastle.org.uk/send-local-offer/your-voice/newcastle-parent-carer-forum
Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman – SEND decisions
https://www.lgo.org.uk/decisions/education/special-educational-needs
Information correct as of 24 October 2026. The performance figures relate to Newcastle City Council as a whole, not specifically to Great Park schools or families. The advice and contact information is general guidance rather than an assessment of any individual family's circumstances.
