The annual review must take place within 12 months of the last review, or of the date the EHCP was first issued. This is not affected by an ongoing appeal. As such, the annual review needs to take place.

The annual review could be an opportunity to try and resolve some of the issues in dispute.

Following the Annual review if the LA issues a new amended EHCP, this EHCP is valid and enforceable and replaces the plan that has been appealed.

If there are still parts of the EHCP you are unhappy with, you can ask the Tribunal to treat the new EHCP as a working document in the current appeal, rather than registering a new appeal.

The SEND Tribunal may decide that you should submit a new appeal and ask for the appeals to be consolidated (joined together), so be careful not to miss your deadline for obtaining a mediation certificate and appealing.

Section 14 of the SEND35 Appeal Form asks for details of any other appeals, and you should provide the appeal number of the existing appeal there. Once the new appeal has been registered you can use the SEND7 Request for Changes form to ask the SEND Tribunal to consolidate (join together) the appeals, if it hasn’t already done so.