LA have removed key provision wording in EHCP between us winning at Tribunal and then issuing the final EHCP post-appeal!

[LemonGoby]

Hi

After the chore of going to Tribunal, I thought we would be done with the LA, at least for a while. They have only just issued the final post-appeal EHCP (several months after the Tribunal), and I see they have removed the quantification and specification of DC’s support hours! So while the last version of the Working Document, which the Judge signed off on, said ‘£XX, equivalent to XX hours 1:1 TA and XX hours of lunchtime support’ (Section I under Education Funding), the post-appeal version just says ‘£XX’ with all mention of hours and type of support removed.

I am beyond annoyed - surely the LA can’t make alterations like this after the Tribunal has ordered the EHCP to be issued?!

And please can someone set my mind at rest by confirming that the quantification and specification of hours is still a thing? My LA has tried before now to say ‘oh, we don’t do that anymore’, and has fed this line to DC’s school in the past, but as far as I know quantification and specification is still considered essential and in the SEN code of practice/advised by Ipsea etc?

Many thanks all

1:1 provision should be specified and quantified, but in section F not I. The tribunal wording is also woolly so even if it was in section F it wouldn't be enforceable. "equivalent to" needs removing. Funding isn't really your concern.

You can threaten to begin Judicial Review proceedings for failure to comply with SENDIST.

I don't understand the judge's order. There's recent case law that says all that should be in section I is the name of the school. There is no need for anything about funding to be in the EHCP, and the 1:1 stuff should be properly specified in section F. Have you double-checked that they haven't put it in there?

However, if in fact it does say the wording should be in section F and they haven't complied, they can't do that by law and the remedy is to threaten judicial review.

It might be worth getting someone like SOS SEN to have a look at the order and the EHCP to help to sort it out and/or to help with the judicial review issue.