The draft SEND strategy is open for comment until 21 October. In 2025 the council issued 7.6% of new EHC plans within the 20-week legal limit.

Parents of children with special educational needs in West Northamptonshire have until midnight on Wednesday 21 October to comment on the council’s new SEND strategy.

The draft SEND and Inclusion Strategy 2027 to 2030 sets out how the council, schools and the NHS plan to support children and young people up to the age of 25. The consultation opened on 7 October and runs for two weeks.

It lands on an area that is one of the slowest in England to issue education, health and care plans. In 2025 the council issued 7.6% of new plans within the 20-week legal limit. The England average was 45.5%. Those figures come from the Department for Education’s latest EHC plans statistics, published in June.

What the strategy promises

The draft is built around six priorities:

  • voice, information, trust and co-production
  • earlier help and inclusive education
  • joined-up specialist support
  • local sufficiency, alternative provision and stability
  • transitions and preparation for adulthood
  • whole-family wellbeing and community inclusion

The plainest promises are about information and waiting. The partnership says it will publish “plain-English pathway maps, expected response standards, decision routes and escalation options”. It will also set up a single route to specialist advice, called Experts at Hand. That covers educational psychology, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and specialist teaching, with “support while waiting” for families in the queue.

There is one firm number. Places in specialist inclusion bases are due to rise from 305 in 2026 towards “around 430 by 2028/29”. That is “subject to annual validation”. The draft also says more than 500 new specialist places have already been created.

The document is candid about what families said. “Families described exhaustion, burnout, sibling impact, financial pressure and the emotional burden of having to fight for support,” it says. One quote is used as the heading for the first priority: “We want a system that works for us, not one we need to fight.”

The numbers behind it

The draft says there were 5,340 EHC plans in 2025/26. The Department for Education counts 5,337 at January 2026. In January 2022, the first year it reported West Northamptonshire on its own, the figure was 2,847. That is a rise of 87% in four years.

The time taken to issue new plans is the sharper problem. The 20-week limit runs from the request for an assessment to the final plan. Here is the record since the council was created:

Year New plans issued Within 20 weeks Share on time
2021 428 133 31.1%
2022 569 57 10.0%
2023 625 35 5.6%
2024 711 77 10.8%
2025 1,307 99 7.6%

Two things stand out in 2025. The council issued almost twice as many new plans as in 2024. But 317 of them, nearly a quarter, took more than a year. The average was 43.4 weeks, against 25.6 weeks across England.

Of the 150 councils with a 2025 figure, West Northamptonshire had the eighth lowest on-time rate. In the East Midlands only Derbyshire was lower. North Northamptonshire, which shares many county services with it, issued 54.7% on time.

Horizontal bar chart of the share of new EHC plans issued within 20 weeks in 2025: Lincolnshire 86.8%, Rutland 79.8%, North Northamptonshire 54.7%, Derby 47.2%, England average 45.5%, Nottinghamshire 32.3%, Nottingham 30.2%, Leicestershire 20.3%, West Northamptonshire 7.6%, Derbyshire 4.8%.
Share of new EHC plans issued within 20 weeks in 2025, East Midlands councils and the England average, from Department for Education figures. Chart by The Northampton Wire
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The draft strategy does not mention the 20-week limit or set a target for it. Its measures of success for specialist support are worded generally, such as “improved timeliness and equity of specialist advice”.

More children are also being placed in independent special schools, which the strategy wants to reduce. The DfE counted 359 West Northamptonshire children with plans in independent special schools in January 2026, up from 157 in January 2022.

Government approval, and a caveat

On 5 October the council said the Department for Education had approved its Local SEND Reform Plan. Every area had to submit one under the national SEND reforms. The draft strategy absorbs that plan, so there is one programme rather than two.

Cllr Michael Stratton, the cabinet member for children, families and education, said approval was “only the beginning”. “We know there is more to do,” he said.

The approval matters for money as well as services. A report to the Schools Forum on 13 October says the Government’s new High Needs Stability Grant covers 90% of each council’s SEND deficit up to March 2026. It is paid this autumn once the DfE has accepted the area’s reform plan.

For West Northamptonshire that means:

  • a £49.9m grant, cutting the accumulated deficit from £55.4m to £5.5m
  • but a forecast £65.6m overspend on the high needs budget this year
  • so a deficit of about £70.7m again by March 2027

The report blames the 88% rise in EHC plans since the council was created in 2021. It also blames a shortage of local special school places, “meaning that the Council must resort to more expensive independent places”.

The draft strategy also carries its own warning. Its front page says “final baseline figures, annual trajectories” and named partner responsibilities still have to be checked and approved before it is published.

The council says the draft drew on more than 250 survey responses and events attended by more than 170 people.

What it means for you

  • Have your say by midnight on Wednesday 21 October. The adult survey is here, and there is a separate survey for children and young people.
  • Read the draft first. There is a full version and a shorter version written for children and young people, both on the consultation page.
  • Need another format or help to respond? Email WNCSEND@westnorthants.gov.uk.
  • Waiting for a plan now? The 20-week limit is a legal duty, not a target. The council’s Local Offer is its directory of SEND services, support and advice.
  • Worth raising in your response: whether the final strategy should set a target for the 20-week limit, since the draft has none.

Sources