Families launch legal bid to prevent SEND cuts

The attempt to prove Surrey County Council's actions are unlawful is currently being heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
 
Five Surrey children with special educational needs claim the local authority should have consulted with those who would be affected before it approved a decision to reduce its SEND funding by £21m.
 
They also claim the council has breached its public sector equality duty and that it failed to safeguard and promote the welfare of vulnerable children, as required by the Children Act 2014.
 
According to council documents, the number of children with a SEND statement or education health and care (EHC) plan it supports rose by 44 per cent from 2,342 in 2010/11 to 7,700 by February 2018.
 
A Surrey County Council spokesman said: "We are defending this claim but as ever our main focus is making sure children get the support that they need."
 
In August the High Court blocked Bristol City Council's decision to cut £7m from its SEND budget, after it found the process used by the authority to reach the figure was legally flawed.
  
Other parents are due to bring a similar claim against Hackney Council later this month. And nationally a group called SEND Family Action plans to take legal action against the government for creating what it sees as a national crisis in SEND support, through cuts to government grants to local authorities.
 
Led by families including parents from North Yorkshire and East Sussex, it has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund research into legal grounds on which to bring the claim.