council profile · North West

Cheshire East

75/100

high needs pressure

A sourced snapshot of the demand led pressures on Cheshire East, drawn from official datasets. It needed £25m of emergency financial support in 2025/26.

Upper tier authority · figures 2025 to 2026

Financial distress

Cheshire East is one of 30 English councils that MHCLG placed on exceptional financial support for 2025 to 26, worth £25m. 26 of the 148 upper tier councils profiled here are on that list; the rest sit outside the scope of this profile. MHCLG ↗

Special educational needs

5,440

Children with an EHC plan

DfE EHC plans
+85%

EHC caseload growth, five years

DfE EHC plans
20%

New plans issued within 20 weeks

DfE EHC plans
£11.5m

Special needs school transport, forecast spend

DfE home to school transport
71%

Special needs pupils carried by taxi

DfE home to school transport

Children and schools

66

Looked after children per 10,000

DfE children looked after
20.4%

Pupils persistently absent

DfE pupil absence

Housing and money

43

Households in temporary accommodation

MHCLG statutory homelessness
49

Children in temporary accommodation

MHCLG statutory homelessness
17%

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. See the council pressure analysis for what the pattern across all councils shows.