Jane McConnell head of SENDIST talking about appeals, some very useful info.

[Ineedmorepatience]

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Bump

thanks!

I think that the new legislation calls for the LA to be responsible for the production of bundles rather than the tribunal service. I remember hearing on the radio/reading about the move of SENDIST and one guy who at the time was responsible for photocopying all the bundles. Legislation exists to not allow cases to progress to hearing where there has been no bundle produced but SENDISt are unwilling to use this to sanction LAs and choose to retain production. It is obviously not in the best interests of the child to adjourn and finding in favour of the parents would lead to lots of LA appeals. I know that funding is split between appeals registered and appeals decided after hearing as so many appeals are settled prior to hearing.

DS2's bundle was nearly 1,000 pages. The new guidelines would restrict the amount of evidence that can be provided - 100 pages for refusal to assess to include EP, SALT, OT, medical reports etc - one for each side - impossible. I could precis it down for them but SENDISt don't accept the views of parents and want to see the whole report.

imo the panel don't read the whole bundle anyway. I was told (by the judge) at DS2's tribunal that parents had submitted sufficient views on paper and so the hearing was largely concerned to hear from the school. When I was finally allowed to speak at around 3pm I referred to examples of work submitted in the bundle which the panel were apparently unaware of. Up until that point they had accepted the school assertion (with no evidence) that DS2 worked above average. Having seen his essay describing the stone age ('A lot of stones.' The End) they suddenly changed their minds. Why the about face if they had already studied the bundle in great depth as claimed?

When I did my tribunals I put some pages in that were the same as the LA's because they had only put one side of a report or a report but not the assessment that Dd3 had done with notes from the assessor (OT).

I think I would find it difficult @KeepOnKeepingOn1 to stick to such a small number of pages having done 2 appeals with lots of evidence. I guess I would have to get better at cross referencing to the LA evidence.

In my experience the panel had definitely read the bundles and had a good understanding of Dd3 before we started. They topped that up with careful questioning to fill any gaps.

I guess we have to just watch and wait.

I don't think 100 pages for a refusal to assess appeal is unreasonable, bearing in mind the very low threshold that has to be satisfied. It shouldn't normally be necessary to file much more than something like paediatric, EP and school reports.

There will be core documents that don't count against either side's totals, including the appeal, response, tribunal orders, EHCP/statement, and relevant annexes. Therefore it's in parents' interests to get as much as possible by way of past reports annexed to the EHCP. It will be possible to apply for permission to file documents that take the page numbers over the limit, and in complex cases that need a lot of reports I wouldn't have thought there would be any problem. What they're mainly trying to avoid is the situation where there are hundreds of pages of old reports that really aren't relevant, or endless correspondence, or the type of situation where someone's done a DPA search of school records and files the lot whether they're relevant or not. However, I guess experts are going to have to cut down the length of their reports, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I was glad to hear about the paper hearings for most refusal to assess appeals. The legal test is so simple that there shouldnt really be any problem should there! Not many parents go to appeal when they dont think that their child has special needs or needs more provision! I mean why would you!?

I know that my LA (Gloucestershire) has been banned from taking part in at least 12 SEND hearings by the tribunal for failing to produce the bundle (friend works there). Apparently they still have not learnt! Have instructed Baker Small again. The restriction of pages seems a good idea - that number of pages is per side from what she says - and you can always ask for more if you need it.

FFS, if Baker Small's conduct was too disgusting for Gloucestershire to use them before, why does their own incompetence about a relatively straightforward administrative task suddenly justify reinstructing BS?