Parent asks:

I requested an assessment through my son’s school pre-lockdown. It was for an Educational Psychologist. I received the report two months later and realised that the school had, in fact, ignored my request and gave the Educational Psychologist remit to provide his view and comment on the school’s draft EHC plan before it being shared with me and the LA. I signed the paper for the Educational Psychologist thinking he was going to assess; is there anything I can do?

Ipsea answers:

From your reference to a draft EHC plan, we assume your son has recently had an EHC needs assessment. As part of this assessment, he should have been assessed by an educational psychologist; please see our page on the EHC needs assessment process for more information. (Due to COVID-19 we understand that the majority of assessments are being carried out remotely at present.)

If your concern is that there has been no assessment by an educational psychologist, you could adapt our model letter on this topic to make a formal complaint to the LA.

If your concern is more to do with the EHC plan being shared with the educational psychologist, it may be that the information was shared without your consent, and as such you could consider making a complaint to the ICO. However we would advise caution with this approach, because it is possible you consented to information being shared with the educational psychologist when you requested the assessment, and also it is not unreasonable for a school to request advice from an educational psychologist when providing information for an EHC plan. It may be more productive to focus on getting the required assessments carried out in order for an adequate EHC plan to be prepared.