The development of Educational Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) is essential yet notoriously time-consuming, often diverting caseworkers' attention away from direct family support. Recognising this challenge, we are about to embark on an innovative pilot to streamline the EHCP creation process using artificial intelligence (AI). This initiative promises to transform a traditionally laborious task into a more efficient and less time-consuming process.

Current Challenges:

The process of crafting each EHCP can take caseworkers an average of 6 hours, a significant investment of time that could be better spent on direct support.

This intensive administrative workload detracts from the essential support families and schools need.

The AI Solution:

By employing an AI tool that can interpret and organise information from existing documents, such as educational psychologist reports and parents' perspectives, the process is significantly expedited.

The tool uses advanced natural language generation techniques to automatically compile these insights into the required EHCP format, promising a more streamlined approach.

Anticipated Benefits:

The pilot aims to reduce the time caseworkers spend on administrative tasks to just an hour per plan, freeing them up to provide more direct support to families and schools.

This innovative approach has the potential to be scaled up, benefitting additional local authorities and a wide range of other administrative processes.

Next Steps:

Detailed planning for the pilot programme is underway. It launches in April with several LAs from across the country in the first cohort. 

The pilot's outcomes will be carefully evaluated, with learnings shared widely to promote broader adoption.

There's significant potential to apply this AI-driven efficiency to other administrative tasks, paving the way for further improvements in public service delivery.

This project represents a leap towards leveraging technology to enhance educational support services, promising significant benefits for caseworkers, families, and schools alike.