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• 01 Nov 2024

• Yes

  Complex

  Yes. A tribunal must give its decision and reasons in writing: r.52 EdTW Regs 2021. The ETW may give its decision orally at the end of a hearing, but written reasons still need to be given: r.52 (1) & (3) EdTW Regs 2021.

  The reasons need to be sufficient so that each party knows why their case has won or lost on significant points: see e.g. JJ & EE v Buckinghamshire Council [2022] UKUT 345 (AAC) para 33.

  In H v East Sussex CC [2009] EWCA Civ 249 para 16-17, the Court of Appeal explained that the FTT “is not required to be an elaborate formalistic product of refined legal draftsmanship [sic], but it must contain an outline of the story which has given rise to the complaint and a summary of the Tribunal's basic factual conclusions and a statement of the reasons which have led them to reach the conclusion which they do on those basic facts.” That approach is likely to apply to the ETW, because the EdTW Regs 2021 refer to the statement of reasons being “in summary form”.

  It would appear as if the obligation on the ETW to give reasons is not distinct from that of a court, as any rate where there is a duty to address expert evidence: “Where there is a straightforward factual dispute whose resolution depends simply on which witness is telling the truth about events which he claims to recall, it is likely to be enough for the [FTT] (having no doubt summarised the evidence) to indicate simply that [it] believes X rather than Y; indeed there may be nothing else to say. But where the dispute involves something in the nature of an intellectual exchange, with reasons and analysis advanced on either side, the [FTT] must enter into the issues canvassed before [it] and explain why [it] prefers one case over another. That is likely to apply particularly in [appeals] where, as here, there is disputed expert evidence; but it is not necessarily limited to such cases”:Flannery v Halifax Estate Agencies Ltd [2000] 1 WLR 377, applied in  Hampshire CC v JP [2009] UKUT 239 (AAC) para 39.

  It is likely that the limitations which the UT has identified in respect of the FTT will apply similarly to the ETW, for example: The FTT is “entitled to limit its consideration to the matters identified in the working document”: DL v LB Redbridge [2010] UKUT 293 (AAC) para 13. 

  In A J v. LB of Croydon [2020] UKUT 246 (AAC) para 93 the UT considered: “If parents say that a move to another school would be devastating for their child, the FTT is not bound to accept that assertion, but it must explain why it does not agree with it and the basis on which it disagrees with those assertions.It is not sufficient merely to say baldly and without supporting reasons that it was satisfied that (a) both in terms of its overall experience in supporting young people with ASD and consideration of [G’s] specific learning difficulties the proposed school was capable of meeting his needs and that (b) it further determined that the proposed placement was able to meet his needs.”

  Nodi glossary:  Education Tribunal Wales

  

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

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