Legal Update: Court Report - Upper Tribunal to judge on SEN case

Case name P v Worcestershire County Council

Case number [2016] UKUT 120 (AAC)

Judge The Hon. Mr Justice Mitchell

Location Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber)

The case related to A, a child with a Statement of SEN. His parent had wanted him to attend an independent school with dyslexia specialism, but the local authority had named a mainstream academy with no specific amount of teaching assistant support, which would cost much less. The First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) had previously determined that A needed 25 hours of teaching assistant support if he attended the proposed mainstream school, and ordered that these hours be included in Part 3 of the Statement of SEN. A’s parents appealed the FTT decision.

Judge Mitchell found that once the FTT had decided to order 25 hours per week of teaching assistant support, it needed to consider whether the local authority’s costs evidence could be relied on when setting an amount of hours. This was an important issue and the FTT erred in law by failing to explain why, despite ordering 25 hours per week of teaching assistant input, it was still able to rely on the local authority’s costs evidence that the main-stream school would cost significantly less.

On finding that the FTT decision contained an error of law, the appeal was remitted to the FTT for rehearing. Judge Mitchell further noted that the FTT, during the rehearing, must consider A’s current circumstances. This was an important aspect for the Upper Tribunal to highlight as, due to the time these appeals take, it is likely in most cases that circumstances will have changed.