Sort

• 01 Nov 2024

• Other

  Complex

  Can't answer yes or no.:

  “Public Expenditure” includes:

  1. Public expenditure by all public bodies, such as schools, the entire LA (not just the ALN/education department), social care costs and NHS costs: WH v Warrington BC [2014] EWCA Civ 398 para 27; O v Lewisham [2007] EWHC 2130 para 17. See also EH v KCC [2010] UKUT 376 (AAC) para 21 and KE v Lancashire CC (SEN) [2017] UKUT 468 (AAC) para 15-16.
  2. It also involves taking into account the positive or negative financial impact on another LA. This was the case in CM v Bexley [2011] UKUT 215 (AAC) where the child being placed in a school maintained by another LA would lead to an inter-authority payment by the ‘home’ LA.
  3. Additional expenditure by a maintained school arising from placing a pupil there also should be taken into account: X City Council v SENDIST, AB, MB & GB [2007] EWHC 2278 para 12-13.

   

  What needs to be considered is the actual difference in cost to the public purse in educating the pupil in accordance with the wishes of the parents compared to the viable alternative being proposed by the LA. For example, if a taxi to a particular school is already provided or a learning support assistant could look after a second pupil at no extra cost, then there will be no additional public expenditure: Oxfordshire v GB [2001] EWCA 1358 paras 17–19. However, if adding the pupil would increase the cost of a service already being provided this would need to be considered. 

  Any savings made from parents having previously not sent the child to school at public expense should not be taken into account when weighting up the cost to the public purse: EC v North East Lincolnshire [2015] UKUT 648 (AAC) para 11.

  When considering the public expenditure for the purposes of s 9 EA 1996, the LA (and on appeal, the Tribunal) needs to consider the cost over the likely duration of the choice of placement and not just the year the IDP will be in force before it must be reviewed: Southampton v G [2002] EWHC 1516 (Admin).

  In LB Richmond upon Thames v AC (SEN) [2017] UKUT 173 (AAC), the Upper Tribunal set aside a decision of the First-tier Tribunal, in a case where the First-tier Tribunal had held that the mother would refuse to send her child to the LA’s placement if named. The First-tier Tribunal had reached a perverse decision in naming the mother’s placement, having wrongly taken into account the “wasted provision” and the costs of prosecuting the mother for non-attendance if the LA’s school was named. This approach subverted the legislative intention of s 9 and allowed a parent’s “extreme intransigence” to prevail.

  

  Nodi No-nonsense Guide Wales
  Authors: Civitas Law education team

0 This is helpful

|

Comment

Post