Part 2: Appealing to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SEND)

In this second article in our series about the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (also known as the SEND or SENDIST) we look at what happens once you have sent your appeal form to the Tribunal.

Once you have sent your appeal form to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, a timetable for your appeal will be issued. These are called ‘Case Management Directions’.

The following directions are those typically made by the Tribunal:

• Local authority (LA) response
  This is the date by which the local authority should provide its initial response, with reasons and evidence, to your appeal. Because the initial information provided when you send your appeal may be rather brief, the response given by the local authority may also be equally as brief.

• Parents’/LA’s attendance form
  This is a form which confirms who will be attending at the final hearing.Whilst you will be required to send the attendance form in long before the Tribunal hearing, typically, as long as witnesses are confirmed no less than one month before the final hearing, there is no difficulty with their attendance. The Tribunal does, however, have the power to refuse to admit any witness or representative.

• Further evidence
  This is the deadline by which the case should be fully formed and the Tribunal should have all the evidence and arguments that you and the local authority wish to make.This is the key date for the purposes of expert evidence and must be adhered to. It is possible to send evidence to the Tribunal after this date but you will have to make an application to the Tribunal for the evidence to be admitted. This can often be very difficult.

• Bundles
  If your appeal is about a Statement of Special Educational Needs, the Tribunal will be responsible for preparing the bundle for the final hearing.If your appeal is about an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment or Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), the local authority is responsible for preparing the bundle. You should keep careful record of everything you send, and receive, before the bundles are issued. When you receive the bundle you should make sure that this contains everything that you expected. It will contain all of the legal arguments and the evidence that you and the local authority want the Tribunal to consider.The bundles are normally sent out one or two weeks before the final hearing. The bundle is normally separated into three sections; the parent’s case and evidence, the local authority’s case and evidence and the various applications received and Orders made by the Tribunal in the lead up to the final hearing.

• Final hearing
  Within the Case Management Directions the Tribunal will confirm when the hearing will be. However, the location of the hearing will tend to be confirmed one or two weeks before the hearing itself. The Tribunal will normally try to list the hearing locally to parents. If you have particular mobility needs or a particular need for a local hearing you should inform the Tribunal separately.The length of the hearing very much depends on the complexity of the issues that are being raised. Most hearings do not last more than one day, but can be longer depending on the amount of evidence and the complexity of the matter.

Appeal process timescales

The whole appeal process, from the point you tell the Tribunal you want to make an appeal to final hearing, normally takes around 20 weeks (or 12 weeks for phase transfer appeals – e.g. when your child moves from primary to secondary school).

The Tribunal is also trialing a 7 week appeals process for the most urgent cases.

Tribunal judges are told not to make a decision on the day. It would only be in very exceptional circumstances for a decision to be made on the day. Typically, the decision will follow two weeks after the hearing.

If you have any questions, please contact us directly for individual advice. Appeals to the Tribunal can be extremely difficult and specialist advice should always be sought.

In our next article in this series we will be looking at how to appeal the decision of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal.