Timing of annual reviews (s44 CFA2014). Is it correct that an annual review should be 12 months after the date an amended EHCP was issued (following a tribunal appeal)?

s44 CFA2014 requires an EHCp to be reviewed within 12 months of being issued and then within 12 months of the date the EHCp was last reviewed.

The last review of my 9 yo daughters EHCp was/was completed on the 1st July 2022. We appealed to the FTT who ordered amendments to the EHCp, and the amended document was issued on 30th April 2023. The LA now claims that the next s44 review must be completed by 30th April 2024 and not 1st July 2023 as s44 requires.

We have EOTAS following tribunal, with provision specified in section F. It is now five weeks since we received the tribunal order and the provision ...

... is not in place - ie we haven't received the personal budget. We have received a pb contract, but it doesn't include all the provision in section F. Some of which is really clear (eg 38 weeks instead of 39) and some I think the LA would consider open to interpretation, though seems pretty clear to me. I don't want to sign a contract that isn't correct, but I do need the money ASAP to pay the providers. Is my best option just an official complaint? Is there any wording to quote to potentially speed things up? Thank you

EOTAS on health grounds - CVI & epilepsy

My child has an EHCP in place. He understands alot but has huge barriers in communication so cannot tell me how he is feeling.

His vision fluctuates from being not great to being completely blind depending on how cluttered the environment is and how much visual or auditory clutter there is(clutter includes humans of course). He is in an SEN provision, class of 10 and each school evening he gets home and has a huge meltdown due to the stress on his vision and each school night he is having an average of 5 epileptic seizures as a result of this same stress.

We are in between a 2 day tribunal and a further 1 day adjournment hearing. I obviously dont want to get in trouble with LA but i cant watch my child health being continually impacted upon as a result of complying with sending him to school. If i take my child out of school for a month or so prior to the next hearing for these health reasons what, if any bearing will it, or is it likely to have on EOTAS and being able to implement provision at home in a distraction free environment?

Thank you in advance

Can you pass on any advice to parents who are attending Tribunal to make it less stressful and help them be prepared?

Please explain public task as lawfulness for data processing in context of EHCPs that a ) LAs and b) Schools rely upon? I believe the public task ...

... of the LA is to have processes in place for dealing with EHCPs i.e. NHS commissioning agreements, assessment processes etc. But PUBLIC TASK does not mean that sensitive specific individual data can openly/ without parental or child consent be processed with whom the LA deems appropriate ie. school consultations or third parties.This would need to be agreed. PUBLIC TASK in terms of EHCP/SENDIST means that processes are in place.

LAs quote public task as lawfulness to share and obtain your individual data with third parties without your knowledge in EHCPNA and SENDIST. I don't agree and no one can explain this to me in simple SENDIST/ Education terms. Please can some one explain this as I believe LAs and schools are misquoting to obtain and share data strategically in sendist to blindsight parents

Can Section A only be amended at annual review? I have just successfully appealed Sections B, F and I of my child’s EHCP at Tribunal. The Tribunal ...

... has ordered the LA to amend Sections B and F. The LA is in the process of doing so. My question is whether the LA is precluded in law from making the amendments I have requested to Section A at the same time?

The LA has said it can only do what the Tribunal has ordered it do it and that I will have to wait a year for an annual review to ask for amendments to Section A. My understanding is that as Section A can’t be appealed and does not come within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, there is nothing in law to preclude the LA from making amendments to Section A now - when they are working on the EHCP to amend Sections B and F. Is this right?

I know I may be wasting my time arguing a point of principle here, but it feels an important one as the Draft EHCP was very poorly drafted and didn’t even include the full views my daughter had written out herself nor the full information she had given to the LA’s Ed Psych as part of a sentence completion activity. I therefore felt that in not including them in Section A her voice had been ignored, which was contrary to the whole principle of the Code of Practice. I have been asking for these amendments since the poorly written Draft was issued.

The LA ignored my requests to make the amendments during the exchange of working documents and has now come back with a ‘No’ and an email saying, ‘This can be amended following a future annual review. Legally [we] must stick to the working document and what the Tribunal have ordered us to amend.’ This feels unnecessarily unreasonable but is there anything in law to support their point?

Any advice gratefully received. Thank you.

The cost of an EHCP disagreement. Can you outline the costs for parents of taking the LA to tribunal?

Is the LGO correct to tell me that it cannot investigate my complaint because I used my right to appeal to the SEND Tribunal?

I made a complaint to the LGO in relation to the LA's refusal to provide recompense for the legal costs I was forced to incur as a direct result of the LA’s substantial and persistent failings.
The LGO has just responded to say that it cannot investigate my complaint because I used my right to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) and this places the matter outside the LGO’s jurisdiction. The LGO referred to section 26(6)(a) of the Local Government Act 1974 to support this decision.
I understand that the LGO can’t consider a complaint where someone has already appealed to a Tribunal about the same matter but am confused as to how the Council’s refusal to provide recompense falls within the definition of the same matter.
The matter that came before the Tribunal in July 2022 was an appeal against the contents of my daughter’s EHCP – Sections B, F and I. The matter that I brought to the LGO was the LA’s decision not to provide recompense for the legal costs I was forced to incur because of their maladministration and service failure.
I had been advised that the general rule in the SEND Tribunal jurisdiction is that there should be no order for costs. We therefore made no request for costs. Further, the LA’s Assistant Director of SEND had told me in a meeting before the Tribunal that he would consider my request for recompense of legal costs if I put it to him in writing. I did this after the Tribunal. At the same time, I asked for recompense for loss of educational opportunity, loss of income and for emotional costs.
The LA agreed to provide recompense in relation to those costs, but not for the legal costs. It was this decision – made in October 2022 - that I made a complaint about to the LGO.
The LGO replied and told me that I had to go through the LA’s complaints procedure. I did what they asked and spent the next 5 months going through the LA’s lengthy two-stage process. When I eventually got the LA’s ‘final outcome’, I went back to the LGO. This has resulted in the decision that I’ve just received - that the LGO can’t investigate my complaint because it doesn’t have jurisdiction.
Firstly, I am frustrated because if this is the case then surely the LGO must have known this in October 2022? It could have saved me a lot of work, stress and anxiety if it had told me this rather than telling me that I had to go back to the LA and go through their formal complaints’ procedure; and secondly, how does my complaint fall within the same matter?
The LGO’s reasoning is that the legal costs are a consequence of the matter about which I appealed and therefore it cannot consider whether the costs I incurred resulted from fault on the Council’s part. It says that the Courts have held that matters relating to the subject of the appeal are caught by this and therefore there is no role for the Ombudsman here. Is this right or do I have any further rights to appeal this decision? Disappointingly, the LGO decision does not set out the cases where the Courts have held this – as I would be interested in reading them.
I believe that this case highlights a very real issue in relation to SEND law and access to justice.
Many thanks in advance for any answers to my question.

We have been asked... Can a Local Authority name a school on an EHCP without the agreement of the child’s parents, and ignore the parent’s ...

... requested school completely? The LA is claiming the family will have to go to appeal to secure their preferred school.

To provide some additional context, the parent has provided the LA with a list of schools they wish for the LA to consult with. It is not clear what type/s of school the parent has listed.

The LA have responded to say they will be listing their own schools for consultation. It is not clear if this is in addition to or instead of the schools the parent listed. The LA re relying on paragraph 9.84 of the SEND COP, which concerns non-maintained / independent education providers.

The parent has been told by the LA:
1. You have the right to list the schools that you want for the consultation process
2. During this consultation process of 15 days, we are going to consult our schools in the borough which are not the ones you have listed because of paragraph 9.84
3. If our schools say yes to accepting your child or there are no spaces, we can go over the limit from 15 to 17, or even if it’s not the best school for your child as long as the setting can meet your child’s needs we will consult them, your permission is not required at this stage
4. We will take this to panel and present our schools, you can appeal after we have listed a school for your child

Is the LA correct? Can you explain the law around the right to name a parental preference and the consultation process, as found in sections 33 and 39 CFA 2014, and from section 9.78 – 9.84 SEND COP?

We have just been rejected for the second time for a PIP application for my 31-year old adult son who has recently been diagnosed with Severe Autism ...

... level 2 'requiring substantial support'. We are appealing, so now it goes to HM Courts & Tribunal Service. I am feeling completely overwhelmed and out-of-my-depth, and as his Mum I am aware I have no legal experience or expertise, and we are only allowed one hearing. Is anyone able to offer me any legal advice and/or support?