A tribunal question

[levantine]

When sending documents to SENDIST. to ask for tribunal, did you put everything in that supports your case? Or do you submit more evidence later?

And if you put everything in, is it wiser to put in reports that are not 100% supporting your case on the basis that that the panel will see them anyway and it looks bad not to have submitted them?

I would be grateful for any quick replies

I put everything in. Not necessarily in all one go, but everything relevant to my case was in by the deadline.

Not sure how helpful this might be to you though. The evidence we had for the provision we wanted at a special school placement was plentiful, authoritative and overwhelming - to the point where the LA's own expert witnesses refused to attend the hearing.

Looking at your problem through the other end of the telescope - did our LA's case suffer from withholding / suppressing evidence from their own experts, or other reports that undermined their case? We chucked these reports into our part of the bundle, and pointed this out. It made precisely fuck-all difference.

You don't have to submit all of your evidence with your initial request. We didn't even have ours when we registered the appeal but my solicitor wrote a covering letter stating that the reports would be circulated to all once we had them and by the final evidence deadline.
If you have reports that don't support your case you really need your independent experts to dispute these and state their reasons for doing so. So you will probably find that you have to submit them as your experts reports should refer to them.
Good luck!

Thank you! Very helpful. So confusing, all of it

I submitted some reports I didnt agree with first time round and pointed out why I didnt agree with them in my written parental evidence!

I am just about to go again and have done the same wirh one really dodgy report that needs discussing.

Anything you might need to mention in the hearing needs to be in the bundle, so if its crap put it in but appendix it and say why you dont agree with it!

Good luck

The LA reports can be useful however poor they are as they can show a variety of evidence...eg inadequacy of assessments and they often contradict themsleves or pick of the poorest points from the NHS professional points and twist them and minmize them. So they can be useful to put in and to hi
ghlight the flaws....

If time is short then put in enough to get the appeal registered and then take stock of what evidence you have and where the gaps are.

Once registered, the Tribunal give you a timetable with a deadline for evidence.

Sometimes it is worth getting the clock ticking as soon as possible