1. How many children have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP)?
The information below and in subsequent questions is accurate as of 2nd January 2024
• Primary School: 2777
• Secondary School: 3749
2. How many children identified as autistic do not have an EHCP?
We do not hold this information.
3. How many of these EHCPs identify Autistic Spectrum Disorder/ Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASD/ASC) or Autism as a need or diagnosis?
• Primary School: 727
• Secondary School: 1127
4. For the EHCPs that have Autism (ASD/ASC) identified, what is the type of educational setting they attend (type of school named in Section I).
• Primary School:
Mainstream: 435
Independent Mainstream (NOT special): 5
Specialist Resource Base/Provision or SEN unit: 17
Special School (Academy, Free, LA maintained): 199
Independent Special School (maintained or non-maintained): 31
Alternative Provision: 1
Educated Otherwise than At School (EOTAS): 6
Electively Home Educated (EHE): 25
Other: 8
• Secondary School:
Mainstream: 429
Independent Mainstream (NOT special): 41
Specialist Resource Base/Provision or SEN unit: 14
Special School (Academy, Free, LA maintained): 379
Independent Special School (maintained or non-maintained): 166
Alternative Provision: 12
Educated Otherwise than At School (EOTAS): 34
Electively Home Educated (EHE): 42
Other: 10
5. For the EHCPs that have Autism (ASD/ASC) identified, how many mention that a child has demand avoidance, identifiable by any of the following terms being used in any section of the EHCP:
To extract this information would require an individual review of the 1,854 files referred to in the response to queston 2. Allowing for 10 minutes per file, this would therefore take a total of of 309 hours. This is in excess of the appropriate time limit of 18 hours. We are therefore not obliged to provide this information pursuant to section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
6. For these EHCPs that have demand avoidance mentioned, what is type of educational setting they attend (type of school named in Section I). Please use the above list to categorise setting type:
Please see our response to question 5.
7. Does your Local Authority use the term ‘Pathological Demand Avoidance’ or ‘PDA’ or ‘autism with a demand avoidant profile’ in EHCPs if provided in a professional report?
At this time the Special Educational Needs Team do not have specific terms for this
8. If these terms in question 7 are not used, what is the reason for this?
It was noted that there are no NICE guidelines for stand alone diagnosis of Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) and is not clinically recognised. The team did note that some people are diagnosed with autism with a PDA profile.