EHCP vs Statement: Does Northern Ireland Use EHCPs?

If you are a parent in Northern Ireland and you have been searching for information about EHCPs — Education, Health and Care Plans — you have probably found dozens of guides, templates, and charity resources. Almost none of them will help you. Northern Ireland does not use EHCPs. Every guide, template letter, or advocacy resource built around the EHCP framework is legally unusable in Belfast, Derry, or Enniskillen, because it references legislation that holds zero statutory weight in Northern Ireland.

This is one of the most common and damaging mistakes NI parents make. They purchase an EHCP planning pack, spend hours completing it, and then submit documentation referencing the Children and Families Act 2014 — an English law that simply does not apply here. The Education Authority can and will dismiss it on that basis.

Northern Ireland Uses Statements of SEN

Northern Ireland operates its own distinct SEN legislative framework, completely separate from England, Wales, and Scotland. The core legislation is the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, supplemented by the Special Educational Needs and Disability (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (SENDO) and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (Northern Ireland) 2016.

The legal document at the centre of this framework is the Statement of Special Educational Needs, not an EHCP. Statements have been in use in Northern Ireland for decades and are specifically governed by Article 16 of the 1996 Order. Every element of the process — how provision is assessed, how it is documented, how it is challenged — flows from this framework, not from the Children and Families Act 2014 that underpins EHCPs in England.

If you moved to Northern Ireland from England and your child previously had an EHCP, that document does not transfer. Your child will need to go through the NI statutory assessment process to have a Statement issued under NI legislation. Similarly, a child moving from Northern Ireland to England cannot simply carry their Statement across; they will need an EHCP issued by a Local Authority in England.

How a Statement Differs From an EHCP

An EHCP has sections labelled A through K. A Statement of SEN is divided into six numbered parts. The conceptual purpose is similar — both documents describe a child's needs and specify the provision required to meet them — but the structure, the terminology, and the legal duties they create are distinct.

The six parts of a Northern Ireland Statement are:

• Part 1: Introduction (child's personal details and parental responsibility)
• Part 2: Description of special educational needs
• Part 3: Special educational provision required
• Part 4: Type of school and named placement
• Part 5: Non-educational needs
• Part 6: Non-educational provision (including home-to-school transport)

The most important part is Part 3. This section specifies the exact special educational provision the Education Authority is legally required to secure for your child. Under Article 16 of the 1996 Order, this duty is absolute and non-delegable. If Part 3 states that your child requires 20 hours of 1:1 classroom support per week, the EA must arrange and fund that provision regardless of the school's budget situation. This is the legal guarantee that makes a Statement so valuable — and why the wording of Part 3 is worth fighting hard to get right.

This is broadly comparable to Sections F and H of an EHCP in England, but governed by different law and subject to different appeal routes. The NI tribunal is called SENDIST — the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal for Northern Ireland — and it operates separately from the SEND Tribunal in England.

Why the Confusion Is So Widespread

UK national media, parenting forums, and major charities like IPSEA and SOS!SEN overwhelmingly focus on England's EHCP system because that is where the largest volume of families are affected. IPSEA explicitly states on its website that it does not advise on Northern Ireland law. SOS!SEN states that its advice covers law and practice in England only, and it cannot help with Northern Ireland.

The result is that when NI parents search for SEN help online, the vast majority of results describe a legal framework that does not apply to them. Parents in NI Facebook groups and on Mumsnet frequently use EHCP terminology when describing their child's Northern Ireland Statement, simply because it is the language they encounter most online. Some parents discover the distinction only when they have already submitted incorrect paperwork to the EA.

Using an EHCP template in correspondence with the EA, or citing the Children and Families Act 2014 in a tribunal submission, signals immediately that the parent is not familiar with the correct legal framework. In a process where the precision and credibility of your paperwork is decisive, that is a significant disadvantage.

The NI System Is Currently in Transition

Northern Ireland's SEN framework has been in a state of phased transition for several years. The SEND Act (NI) 2016 was intended to modernise the system, but repeated suspensions of the Northern Ireland Assembly have delayed the supporting secondary legislation. Schools are currently operating under a hybrid model — following the 1998 Code of Practice while also adopting new administrative structures introduced piecemeal under the 2016 Act.

The most visible changes at school level are the replacement of the Individual Education Plan (IEP) with the standardised Personal Learning Plan (PLP), and the consolidation of the old five-stage model into a new three-stage framework. But the Statement of SEN remains the same legally binding document it has always been. The law governing it — the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 — has not been replaced.

Between the 2017/18 and 2023/24 academic years, the number of children holding a Statement grew by 51%, rising from 17,837 to 26,964. Simultaneously, the EA's ability to process assessments on time has deteriorated: up to 88.8% of statement requests breach the 26-week statutory deadline. This is the system NI parents are navigating — not the English EHCP system, but this one, with its own pressures, its own timelines, and its own appeal routes.

What NI Parents Need

Rather than EHCP resources, NI parents need information about the NI statutory assessment process, the 26-week timeline, how to challenge a Note in Lieu, and how SENDIST works. The free resources available in Northern Ireland include SENAC (the Special Educational Needs Advice Centre), which provides NI-specific guidance and tribunal support, and the Children's Law Centre NI.

For a practical toolkit built around NI law — with templates referencing the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, not the Children and Families Act 2014 — the Northern Ireland SEN Appeals Playbook covers every stage of the NI process from initial assessment requests through to SENDIST appeals.

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