- Rewards 32
Questions [3]
Questions they have asked
-
Do i have to submit an annual review final EHCP to the tribunal during an appeals process?
We are currently midway through an appeals process with the LA over the addition of specialist provision to my child's EHCP. We are currently on working document version 5, and there have been numerous changes and additions to sections B & F agreed by both parties; however, the appeal continues as the LA will still not put the specialist provision into the EHCP.
The problem is we have also just had an annual review. The LA issued a draft, and then a final plan, with none of the changes currently agreed upon in the appeal. They changed a lot of section A, but otherwise, the final annual review EHCP is the same as the EHCP we are appealing from the previous year (i.e. the same as working document version 1).
Do I need to submit this new Final Annual Review EHCP to the tribunal (using the Send7 form as the IPSE website suggests), or can I just ignore it and carry on discussing the Working Document version 5 with the LA, as that is the most relevant document with all the changes agreed so far?
If the annual review final EHCP is included, it would be like taking the Working Document back to revision 1 and starting again, but I’m scared that once the appeal is finally done, they will use this new annual review final EHCP to overwrite my appealed EHCP and remove the provision I have spent a year trying to add. All the information on the internet only seems relevant if you want to add the annual review EHCP to the appeal, but in this case, I don’t. I just don’t want to give the LA another weapon against us.
Thank you for any help you can give. -
If a Tribunal rules for SALT provision, would LA use a private SALT already commissioned?
I am currently mid EHCP tribunal appeal over the addition of SALT and OT provision to section F. During this time, we have been privately funding a SALT ourselves who met our child and wrote a good report which became the foundation for the appeal.
Since then, there have been a couple of issues between the SALT and the school that have caused a bit of friction. We didn’t think this was too much of a problem, and just required a bit of meeting in the middle for both parties. However, the SALT has informed us that she doesn’t feel that she is a good fit and is politely withdrawing. Considering how difficult it was to get a private SALT in the first place, I’m not confident that we would be able to get another or if we even should.
Now I believe that if we win the appeal and a SALT provision is added to the EHCP, the LA would be entirely responsible for providing the specialist?
If we had a private SALT on board, would the LA take our SALT on board (which would require us to find a new one before the end of the appeal), or would they have to either provide their own (ignoring ours), or provide a personal allowance to us to cover the continuation of the privately funded SALT (if we can find a new one)?
My expected outcome is that we win the appeal, the LA then would be required to provide a SALT for the school, but the LA will not have one to provide (even if we do). They will sit on the tribunal ruling while we write letters of complaint that they are not providing the tribunal-specified support. Is there a clause or an act I should refer to when writing to the LA when this inevitably happens? What do you do when the LA just ignore the Tribunal’s ruling on the provision, to who do you go to next?
Many thanks for all your help. -
Annual Review Process - Can the LA cherry pick professional reports?
A quick bit of background. We have fought tooth and nail to have a SALT provision added to our son’s EHCP. This took well over a year and a full Tribunal process to achieve (We had to find and pay for the SALT provision through the whole tribunal). Even when ordered by the court, the LA has taken months to put anything in place. We have just undergone another Annual Review, and as part of that we submitted a new SALT report that increases the provision to 1:1 weekly 45 min SALT intervention at the school. The draft has just been issued, and they have ignored the updated provision, so we realise they are going to force us to go down another 18 months of Tribunal process to avoid having to pay for any more provision.
However, the LA have taken the updated part B from the new professional report and put that in the draft plan. They have then omitted section F from that same report, as that would be the bit that costs them money.
Would this be illegal, or at least a wrong use of the policy/code of practice? Could we use this to submit another complaint that we can raise to level 2, so we can then raise an ombudsman case or a undertake a judicial review?
My thinking is that it would contravene Paragraph 9.69 of the SEN and Disability Code of Practice specifically “Provision must be specified for each and every need specified in Section B” and court ruling on ‘R v The Secretary of State for Education and Science, ex parte E [1992] 1 FLR 377 CA’.
My source (https://www.ipsea.org.uk/r-v-the-secretary-of-state-for-education-and-science-ex-parte-e-1992-1-flr-377-ca)
By adding the new SALT comments on need into Section B, but then omitting the new provision in Section F, as specified by the professional report, they cannot claim that the provision is specified for each and every need in Section B.
I am no expert, so I realise that this might be clutching at straws. I have ten days left to comment on the draft (which was also late), but going back to the Tribunal again fills me with dread. I hope there is some way I may be able to force them to update the provision, but I realise that might be unlikely.
I thank you for any help you are able to give.
Edit - Spelling
Answers [0]
Questions they have answered