EHCP - Judicial Review

[UpsideDown12]

Good afternoon,

I'm struggling. Our local authority have failed to provide a final EHCP for my son, who is about to start school next week, within 20 weeks. I wrote and served my own Pre-Action Protocol letter, which originally "got lost in the system". They have failed to respond to my demands for the final plan to be issued.

In light of this, I've contacted in excess of 30 legal outfits, searching for someone to file on behalf of my son, through Legal Aid. Either the practise does not have a contract with Legal Aid, or they do not take on Education related cases.

I'm at the point where I'm considering filing the N461 form myself, though I thought it worth asking on here if you're aware of any legal services who take on education cases and also have a legal aid contract?

Unless you know what you are doing, and even then sometimes when you do, firms will want to send a pre-action letter written by them first.

It is a matter you have to persevere with but you could try Coram, Simpsons Millar, Sinclairs, Bailey Wright, Watkins, Watkins & Gunn. There’s others too. You can search on the government website.

Caution should be taken with proceeding without legal aid. If it goes wrong, it could be costly.

I appreciate you coming back to me with some suggestions.All of them have come back to me, explaining that they are either at capacity or do not have legal aid contracts - except for Coram who I've not yet managed to get through to.

I will persevere but it's just turning into one battle after another.

I had a chat with the Civil Legal Advice service today, who told me that they were unable to move forward with Legal Aid in this case, as I would have to be the litigant. This made no sense to me, as my son would be named on the JR with me as a litigation friend, or a firm as a legal representative.

As I said, you have to persevere, a sign of the demand, but keep going you can find someone. All the ones I listed have a legal aid contract as you will be able to see if you search here. On that same link you can search for others to try. There are others you can try. You can try searching with different postcodes rather than just your own.

You may want to think about a pre-action letter from someone professional because LA’s sometimes take more notice than when parents try to write their own.

You can’t receive legal aid yourself like that, no.

At a bare minimum cost of £600+VAT, a PAP letter from a solicitors is not something we can afford. SOS!SEN have not been able to process our request over the summer holidays. I followed Annex A of the civil protocol for JR. My letter included all relevant legislation - it's a simple breach of statutory duty to complete finalised EHC plan within 20 weeks.

Are you able to shed any light on why the CLA would not entertain Legal Aid for my son to have legal representation for judicial review?

Unfortunately, even if you include all the necessary information, some LAs don’t take pre-action letters seriously if parents write them themselves. Have you checked if you are eligible for legal aid in your name for the pre-action letter?

You can’t get legal aid for DS for you to act for him as you are proposing. You need a firm to take his case on. Then legal aid will be possible. Also be aware some at the CLA are unaware legal aid in the child’s name is possible for some types of cases.

Are you sure you have the correct number for Coram, Op? (I say this because my office extension number used to get mistake for Corum Legal Children's Centre regularly and I was always answering the phone to tearful parents.) Maybe worth double-checking?

Best of luck - it must be a huge source of anxiety...

Cheers, I have 0300 330 5480 .. Quadroople checked.

Have you looked at this - it lists legal aid providers:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66cdae64b0bac21caec708f8/240814_Data_to_share_on_GOV.UK_v.3__inc_HLPAS_.xlsx

I haven’t tried it, as I’m on my phone, but as it’s an Excel spreadsheet, you may be able to sort it by education law providers to get them all in one place at the top?

Yes, you can download the spreadsheet, enable editing and then do a data sort by education, column P to get all the providers with a franchise in legal aid in one place.(There's around 3,000 lines of providers, so its a long spreadsheet).

The link I posted allows you to search for firms with legal aid contract who take on public law cases which is what you want for JR. Although some of the providers with a legal aid contract for public law also do legal aid for education case.

Just an update. We had the final plan issued. School have been in touch and the world is only slightly less stressful than it was yesterday.

Cheers.