Disclosure Log

Freedom of Information request - Freedom of Information request: EOTAS and interim SEND education packages (FOI/7896)

Message from Nottinghamshire County Council - 02 June 2026

Dear Requester,
Request FOI/7896
Further to your request received on 8th May 2026, I confirm that the Council has now considered your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Questions & Answers)
  1. The number of children and young people funded on EOTAS packages
There are 676 that are fully allocated to the SEND EOTAS Team and 26 which are not allocated at present that are still with the district and borough councils.
 
  1. The total spend on EOTAS packages
Calculating all the information directly available for those EOTAS with EHCPs, the figures add up to £16,584,892 approx. This is not including any new provisions being agreed from today within the EOTAS Team and those within the district & borough councils which are in the process of being allocated to EOTAS team.
 
  1. The average annualised spend per EOTAS package
£24,533.86 per package (fully allocated to the EOTAS Team)
£23,625.20 per package (including the district and borough councils unallocated cases).
 
  1. The number of children and young people funded on interim tuition or home tuition packages pending placement
The Council does not hold a central report identifying children and young people funded on interim tuition or home tuition packages pending placement, or the total spend specifically linked to that category. To identify this information, the Council would need to manually review individual EHCP records. There are roughly over 6,000 children and young people with an EHCP. If each record took an estimated time of 3 minutes to review, this would equate to 300 hours approximately. This would exceed the 18-hour appropriate limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000).
 
  1. The total spend on interim tuition or home tuition pending placement
Please refer to the response above for question 4.
 
  1. The number of children and young people receiving fewer than 15 hours per week of commissioned education because no suitable placement is currently available
The Council does not hold a central report identifying children and young people receiving fewer than 15 hours per week of commissioned education specifically because no suitable placement is currently available. To establish this, the Council would need to manually review individual EOTAS records to confirm the number of hours commissioned and the reason for those hours. There are currently 676 children and young people recorded as EOTAS. If each record took estimated time of 3–5 minutes to review, this would equate to approximately 34–56 hours. This would exceed the 18-hour appropriate limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Under Section 16 of the FOIA 2000, public authorities have a duty to provide advice and assistance to help requesters refine or rescope their requests.
In line with this guidance, we would be happy to consider a refined request. You may wish to narrow the scope by focusing on information that is already held in a readily reportable format, or by limiting the timeframe or dataset. For example, it may be possible for us to provide information more efficiently if your request were limited to one or more of the following:
  • EOTAS packages currently allocated to the EOTAS Team, where this information is centrally recorded
  • Data as at a specific point in time (for example, a particular month or snapshot date), rather than covering a wider period
  • Cases currently awaiting placement, where this status is already captured in our systems
  • Summary-level information only, such as the total number of EOTAS packages and associated overall spend.
Refining your request in this way may avoid the need for extensive manual extraction or collation of information.
If you would like to revise and resubmit your request in relation to questions 4,5, and 6, we would be happy to consider this for you.

We hope you find this information useful.
The Council publishes Access to Information requests and responses on its online Disclosure Log. Only requests deemed to be in the public interest will be included and any request included within this log will be de-personalised accordingly.
To view the Council’s Disclosure Log, please visit our website.
Your privacy: we use your personal information such as name and address so that we can comply with our legal obligations to respond to FOI requests.  For further details about the use of information about you, please see the information handling privacy notice on our website at:
https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/media/4323566/informationgovernanceandinformationrightsprivacynotice.pdf
 
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review.   Requests should be submitted within 40 working days of the date of receipt of the response to your original request and should be addressed to: Complaints and Information Team, Nottinghamshire County Council, County Hall, Loughborough Road, West Bridgford, NOTTINGHAM, NG2 7QP or [email protected].
 
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
 
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.  The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, WILMSLOW, SK9 5AF or https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/foi-and-eir-complaints/.

Yours sincerely



Freedom of Information
Complaints and Information Team
Chief Executives Department                                         
Nottinghamshire County Council
The Council is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring all personal information is kept confidential and safe. For more details see our general and service specific privacy notices at: https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/global-content/privacy