The Special Educational Needs survey, known as the ‘SEN2 survey’ includes information on children with education, health and care (EHC) plans across England. This statutory data collection is extremely important and is the only complete source of data on EHC plans maintained by local authorities. In place for years with few amendments, 2023 brings significant change.

Historically SEN2 was an aggregate level return meaning that no information on individual children was submitted to the Department for Education (DfE), instead only high-level counts of children who fit into a particular predetermined criteria were visible.