The UK is witnessing an unprecedented rise in children with special educational needs. Local authorities are mandated to issue statutory Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) for these children. However, the current manual processes for drafting EHCPs are faltering under the increasing demand. This has led to growing backlogs, as caseworkers spend excessive time on individual plans, resulting in prolonged waits for children needing crucial resources and services. The manual processes involved in creating EHCPs have led to administrative bottlenecks, overburdening caseworkers and delaying essential support. 

This situation has also caused inconsistency in plan quality across different authorities. Some, constrained by limited resources, have resorted to outsourcing EHCP work to expensive third parties, rather than addressing these inefficiencies head-on.

As the number of EHCPs continues to soar, innovative solutions are imperative. Our new AI-powered system under development promises to streamline the EHCP drafting process. This could significantly reduce completion times, potentially eliminating backlogs and enabling authorities to better fulfil their crucial duties to these children.

By automating the initial drafting of EHCPs, the AI tool hopes to dramatically reduce the time spent on each plan. This would enable caseworkers to dedicate more time to directly assisting families.

This innovation could allow local services to support children earlier in their development and ensure more consistent quality of EHCPs over time. With pilots on the horizon, this AI solution offers a path to fulfil statutory duties more efficiently and improve outcomes within the constraints of current budgets.