council profile · South West

Dorset

40/100

high needs pressure

A sourced snapshot of the demand led pressures on Dorset, drawn from official datasets.

Upper tier authority · figures 2025 to 2026

Special educational needs

4,719

Children with an EHC plan

DfE EHC plans
+60%

EHC caseload growth, five years

DfE EHC plans
79%

New plans issued within 20 weeks

DfE EHC plans

Children and schools

65

Looked after children per 10,000

DfE children looked after
30.3%

Pupils persistently absent

DfE pupil absence

Housing and money

193

Households in temporary accommodation

MHCLG statutory homelessness
173

Children in temporary accommodation

MHCLG statutory homelessness
23%

Children in low income families

DWP children in low income families

How to read this

A sourced snapshot, not a ranking

Every figure on this page is drawn directly from an official dataset, linked beside it. The high needs pressure score is an indicative British Resilience Index measure that combines the council’s EHC caseload growth, the taxi share of its special needs transport, how few EHC plans it issues on time, and its looked after children rate into a single 0 to 100 percentile; it is an analytical construct, not an official statistic. Temporary accommodation and child poverty are not published at county level, so those cells are blank for county councils, and a small number of councils do not appear in the special needs transport return, so their transport cells are blank too. See the council pressure analysis for what the pattern across all councils shows.