Section I - LA not paying school fees

[NinetyFour]

Hello all,

Surrey LA has agreed to name an independent school in Section I before the case went to tribunal. However, the LA is now not paying the school fees (outstanding for a month now) and my daughter is at risk of losing her place at school due to this.

I have already tried to contact her case officer several times (without response) and raised a complaint but seem to be getting nowhere. I am also aware that if my daughter loses her current school place, the only realistic alternative is special school as she is currently getting full-time 1:1 TA support from the LA at her current school (despite small class sizes). I fear my daughter will now be out of education soon.

Does anyone know how I could get this resolved? Thank you

Don’t go via the normal complaint process. It isn’t a suitable remedy in this case. If the LA is not funding the school named in section I, email the Director of Children’s Services threatening judicial review. If that doesn’t work, you need a pre-action letter. If that fails, you will need to pursue JR proceedings.

We went 8 months with Surrey not paying the school fees. They did eventually pay us back (we had to pay the school as obviously they wanted to be paid)

You have no chance with Rachael Wardell she is useless (remember she has an obe though) personally I wouldn’t even bother with her

Email the duty mail box to check your case worker is still working for Surrey as they all seem to vanish without telling the parents and also email the “CW” manger too

Good luck

Is your MP any good? Just occasionally they can put pressure on.

Judicial review.