SEND Tribunal appeal - LA seemingly not playing by the rules

[Iwanttobreakfree2]

I lodged an appeal with the SEND Tribunal a couple of months ago and the final deadline for submission of evidence before the hearing is just a few days away. The LA has now suddenly informed me that they are in the process of commissioning a further professional report on my DC which is now not going to be ready before the final evidence deadline. Is this standard behaviour for LAs? The report is likely to be rushed and there will likely not be enough time to fully analyse the findings and it may prejudice the case. What action might the SEND Tribunal take? WWYD?

This is not uncommon. If you feel you won't have enough time to respond to the LA’s case, is this a phase transfer appeal? Because otherwise if you only submitted a couple of months ago, there will still be time. Even if it is a phase transfer appeal, unless you are talking about a case with a hearing very soon, there should still be time. SENDIST is likely to allow the late evidence. If the hearing is very soon, you could object to the inclusion of the late evidence. However, you should weigh up if that will actually be helpful to your case because it could risk an adjournment.

Just usual LA tactics to cause stress to parents and try to delay tactics.

Keep on plodding on (it’s normal - nothing special) If your surrey you will see every trick in the universe to mess with a tribunal / time / effort / less cash spent - shame for the children but that’s what they do 🤬

Also do NOT allow the LA to double up on a professional report eg you paid for a private EP (or salt /OT etc) and they are not allowed to see the same profession again from the LA within 6 months I think (they have to take the private report) - it’s just a delay

it’s just LAs messing around

Be careful outright refusing rather than just raising concerns. LAs like to highlight that a parent has refused access and make parents look unreasonable. Depending on the judge, this can go down badly. The LA could also go down the route of requesting SENDIST directs you to make your child available. Certain testing can’t be repeated within 6 months, but that doesn’t mean the LA won’t be successful in seeking other advice and information from the same professional during the appeal process.

This is typical LA delaying tactics. With my son’s failure to issue appeal the LA didn’t submit any evidence or any of the other docs they were ordered to submit but just did the bare minimum of stating that they opposed the appeal. With the final evidence deadline the LA sent a SEND7 to SENDIST 30 minutes before the deadline requesting an extension of a few weeks because they were waiting for a report from my son’s school. What they forgot to mention was that they had only requested the report during half term and a few days before the deadline!

The school then responds with an excellent report and a fully costed provision map making it clear than my son needs an ECHP. The LA then request to have the second final evidence deadline push back by 6 MONTHS to allow more time for my child to settle at school. My child was very settled at school but the LA didn’t like that what the school wrote (that he had extensive SEN and they needed 10k on top of their notional SEN to provide the provision in the EP report). Thankfully when the judge at SENDIST saw this she refused the LA’s request and set a new final evidence deadline making it clear there would be no extensions. At the third evidence deadline the LA submitted a new report from the school which still said he has extensive SEN and needed an EHCP as evidence that he didn’t need an EHCP. Four days later the LA conceded.