Paying for your own child's Statement??

[MadameSin]

A friend of mine has just gone through the Statementing process for her ds and had to pay £500 herself towards it. After the Statement was issued (took approx 6 months) she was then allocated the funds directly - she has to decide what to do with the money to help her child. Is this new and does anyone know if it's in all regions of the country? Thanks!

Are you sure this was a statement or was it one of the new education/health plans? Some areas may be trialling the new plans instead of the previous statementing system. I'm not sure that even those require any sort of payment however so I wonder if you can clarify who she paid money to and why? Many people will get private reports done but that is a choice not a necessity. As I understand it the new plans will have the option for a parent to control their childs budget themselves so this is why I wonder if this is the situation here? In the long term all areas will be moving onto the new plans, but most areas are still using the standard SEN statements system still with funding from the LA to the schools.

Sorry, not sure I follow. What did she have to pay £500 for? Did she instruct solicitors or obtain expert evidence? You don't have to pay for the statement, you do often have to pay for evidence from independent experts to support your case or legal help.

There are some LAs who are 'pathfinder' LAs under a pilot scheme who are supposed to be trialling direct payments for statement provision. This means you can make an application for direct payments to pay for elements of the statement provision. Most LAs don't want to know though even if they are trialling it and it definitely isn't the case that direct payments should be forced on someone.

I agree with both other replies. Even if it were an area trialling the new plans, there is still no reason to be paying for a Statement, unless they have chosen to get a private report done. Again, there are direct payments coming with the new process, but it is still at a trial stage at the moment.

It is pretty standard (though shocking) to pay for some of the evidence that supports the statement, but I can't imagine anywhere will expect you to pay for a statement.