At Richmond Council's Education & Culture Overview and Scrutiny meeting held on Monday 11 October, it was revealed that there was a 44.4% increase in the number of registered appeals to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal during the year 2003 - 2004.

The latest figures showed that in decided cases, 80% were won by parents of children with special needs at the tribunal hearings, compelling the Local Education Authority to fulfil their legal obligations that were in the child's best interests.

The information arose from an agenda item to consider the draft revised SEN Policy document produced by the local education authority officers. Sections of the policy were challenged by members of the public during their three minute slots at the start of the meeting.

Trevor Clarke asked the committee members to discuss and decide on the merits of a full scrutiny review of SEN, pointing out a ready-made template available to them. He requested a clarification of conflicting statements from the LEA who in various documents had claimed on the one hand that the majority of appeals were dismissed or withdrawn, whilst elsewhere admitting that parents were winning a high number of Tribunal cases.

The committee members were unaware of the statistics for the past year but another member of the public, Marion Strudwick, had the most recent official figures, provided directly from the tribunal body SENDIST.

It was also pointed out that if the number of case withdrawals from the LEA conceding were taken into account, the number of successful appeals by parents should be seen as even more significant. Copies of the figures were then circulated to councillors.

Two parents also spoke for three minutes each. One recounted the experiences she had over a period of six years to obtain provision for her daughter and referred to the levels of delay, incompetence, and indifference she had suffered. The mother spoke about the high personal costs and high cost of inappropriate provision, when less expensive but more effective options were available.

The other parent challenged the claims of the LEA that they had consulted parents on SEN policy, pointing out that the mechanism used for consultation did not work since it was school dependent. Both parents pleaded for a thorough Scrutiny Review of SEN.

The Deputy Director of Education admitted that there were delays in replying to correspondence but stated that the LEA was doing its best to put matters right and to comply with the council's charter on response times.

It was agreed by all that for the children's transport to school, a journey time of one and a half hours each way was unacceptable and needed to be addressed. The Committee agreed that the SEN Policy document should be referred back to a future meeting for consideration.

The full set of figures available for The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames are given below.

2002 -2003: 27 appeals equating to 13.34 children per 10,000 of school population (third highest number for England & Wales).
2003 -2004: 39 appeals equating to 19 children per 10,000
Registered 39
Withdrawn 13* [*Withdrawn can mean anything from parents withdrawing (rare) to withdrawal after an LEA has conceded e.g. agreed Statutory Assessment before Tribunal (frequent)]
Conceded 5** [**Conceded - where the LEA decides to accept all, or almost all of the appeal, shortly before the Tribunal hearing and the Tribunal has not had to order a placement etc]
Decided 10: Upheld 8, Dismissed 2
Outstanding 11

Types of Appeal:
Against contents of statement (2&3) - 9 Autistic Spectrum & Speech & Language accounted
Against contents (2,3&4) - 11 for 19 appeals, MLD & SPLD - 15.
Against refusal to assess - 15
Against refusal to make a statement - 1
Against refusal to re-assess - 3

Friday, October 15, 2004

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