Legal aid for judicial review - child's name

[appropriatelyemployed]

I was just wondering - if you were going to challenge the LGO about a decision on failing to arrange the provision in a child's statement, wouldn't you be able to get legal aid in the child's name for the challenge?

I had to wait until DS was 16 to get Legal Aid for educational negligence action.

That's interesting. Why was that? You can sue in negligence by way of a parent if a minor.

You can definitely get legal aid in the child's name to enforce the provision in a statement by way of judicial review. So, if you complain to the LGO in the child's name and the LGO mess up, I reckon the action for judicial review is for the child and not the parent.

Don't know AE - the solicitor just said that he's get LA in his own name at age 16, so he signed the Green papers on his 16th birthday. It may be beacuse I earned too much for the the LA threshold. I was told that a child couldn't get LA for SEN matters - that remained the responsibility of the parent - so I shelled out £80 an hour for the Statement fight.

Might be barking up the wrong tree as not in legal proffession lol.

But.....if you are already getting legal aid in the childs name over provision enforcement can your solicitor incorporate the two? Especially if the LGOs mess up hampered the statement result in any way?I read somewhere on here that you can obtain private assessments in your childs name to support the statement challenge so could you not do the same with the LGO?

Thanks. No, I am not getting legal aid for anything at the moment.

When statementing provision is not in force, you have two choices:

(i) do a judicial review in the child's name
(ii) go to the LGO

My experience with the LGO suggests you are probably better served doing the first as legal aid is available for your child and the LGO seem to misunderstand the law on this. Also, by the time the LGO get round to giving you an answer, the failing to arrange provision issue has usually been sorted.

If you do go to the LGO and the LGO are useless, then I was wondering whether you could then apply for legal aid to judicially review any refusal to find maladministration using legal aid in your child's name.

It seems to me that the LGO feels completely unthreatened by challenges to the nature of its judgments from complainants as who would pay to sue them save for councils?

Can you phone Maxwell Gillott and ask?

Just gonna PM you something....

Have PM'd you back!

I am addressing here specifically the issues around the non provision of a SSEN. Other matters have a different funding route.
If a child has a SSEN then the child is entitled to receive Legal Aid in their own name, with the parents acting as "litigation friend". As the appeal is being done in the childs name then it is the childs income that is assessed. Unless the child has a large trust fund the child will normally get the funding.
By seeking permission to apply for Judicial Review against the failure of the LA to enact the SSEN, you/solicitor first have to write to the LA copied to the legal department to say what is wrong and what you want to be done as a result - the provision in the SSEN is not being provided - provide it. This is one of reasons why you need to spend a great deal of time getting the necessary specificity into the SSEN.
The aim of JR is not to go to court but to force the LA to act. Since they would loose and if they loose pay your costs then copying the complaint to the Legal Department normally - not always- forces a fresh pair of eyes on the case and makes someone realise that they are in error.
In my experience JR is faster then LGO. Many LGO investigators dont understand education. JR can take upto a year, principally due to the volume of cases before the Court, mainly immigration cases.
Hope this is of help.