Parents are stuck in the special needs tribunal backlog as disputes increase by 50%

Parents have been forced to wait more than a year for tribunal hearings into inadequate provision for children with special educational needs, after the number of new cases rose by more than 50% in a year.

The National Audit Office last week highlighted the worsening crisis in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send) system, with cash-strapped councils unable to meet rising need amid a lack of suitable school and college places.

The Send Tribunal hears disputes in England between a local authority and parents or young people about provision for their education.

The number of new cases recorded at the Send Tribunal rose from 13,083 in the year to June 2023 to 20,102 in the year to June 2024. Before the pandemic, this number was less than 7,000. If we look at all cases in the Send Tribunal system, and not just the newly registered cases, there has been an annual increase of 43%, to 32,069. Eight years ago this number was below 4,500.

The Observer Parents have been contacted who have been waiting more than a year for a hearing because services are overloaded.

In other cases, councils respond to parents’ demands just before a tribunal is held, while some local authorities fail to implement the tribunal’s findings.

Julie Cragg tries to get her council to arrange a non-mainstream school for her autistic six-year-old daughter, who suffers panic attacks at her current school and physically resists going to school. She has been given a date from the tribunal: December 2025.

“They don’t have the capacity for it,” she told the newspaper Observer. “They are overwhelmed right now… And in the meantime, my daughter is suffering, and not just her. The children in her regular class also suffer because my daughter takes one or two staff members away from the classroom every day.”

Parents have an almost 100% success rate at Send tribunals. The Tribunal Procedure Committee, which sets rules on how senior tribunals operate, implied in a consultation document last month that municipalities called tribunals to save money by not meeting the needs of Send children.

“The local authority may delay any final outcome that could involve the use of their resources to meet the statutory deadline for completing the EHC (education, health and care) needs assessment,” the report said.

Gillian Doherty, co-director of the Special Needs Jungle website, said: “Delays in accessing tribunals cause significant disadvantage for disabled children and young people, who in the meantime are often unable to access appropriate education and services, without any form of redress for their children. missed provision.

“Local authorities must be adequately resourced and held accountable for making lawful decisions at once.”

Maria Bloom of IPSEA, a Send legal charity, said: “The increasing number of appeals to the Send Tribunal highlights the extent to which local authorities routinely and unlawfully deny children and young people with Send the special education provision and support to which they are legally entitled. .

“Through our helplines we hear every day from families who are fighting to secure the education their children need and are legally entitled to. With 98% of tribunal appeals going in favor of families, it is clear that local authorities are repeatedly failing to meet their legal obligations.”

According to the think tank Pro Bono Economics, Send tribunals cost the public sector almost £90 million a year. A spokesperson for the Local Government Association said: “The need for reform of Send services is now inevitable. Councils are struggling to cope with a more than doubling of children receiving education, health and care plans within a system that creates ‘perverse incentives’ to shift responsibility between public authorities and inadvertently creates adversarial relationships between local authorities and parents.

“We are left with a system burdened by legal disputes through tribunals and an over-reliance on special schools due to a loss of confidence from parents that mainstream schools can meet the needs of their children. We call for action that builds new capacity and creates inclusion in the mainstream context, supported by adequate and sustainable long-term financing and writing off the municipalities’ high deficits.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “For too long, children and young people with Send have been let down by a system that doesn’t work, but this Government is determined to bring about change.

“Urgent work is already underway to ensure more children are supported earlier and better to thrive in education, through our curriculum and assessment evaluation, Ofsted reforms and new Early Years Send training.”

The Justice Department said it has recruited 45 judges to sit on the Send tribunals, with more to follow.