Key findings
Case 2 The second pilot case was one where the young woman appealed in her own right, having seen a TV programme about a particular residential specialist college and
having decided on that basis to attend the open day. After that experience, this young woman knew that this was where she wanted to go to gain the skills she knew she needed in order to become employable in a hotel, which was her aim. Her mother acted as her helper for the appeal. The LA offer was of a non-vocational FE college course two days a week, plus three mornings a week working as an ‘intern’ at a local pub, helping to wash up and so on. There was a local residential home option but the young woman did not want to live there because she had friends who did so and knew that this experience would not give her the opportunities of a waking day curriculum. The young woman’s mother said that she felt the LA “is paying lip-service” to the extension of the age range to 25 years.
This young woman’s EHC plan had not been based on any reassessments of her needs (then aged 21, the assessments had been done when aged 4). Her mother reported: “I feel very let down by the school staff. I don’t think they were educated enough about [the transfer process] and about the importance of the EHC plan.” (Parent P10) Through the appeal process, updated LA assessments were done (including by an educational psychologist, speech and language therapist and occupational therapist) and, through Legal Aid granted to the young woman, independent assessments were also done. However, the need for these new assessments meant that this young woman was delayed by a year in moving on to the college of her choice. The Tribunal panel ordered the requested placement and encouraged the LA to fund this for the full three years, even although this would take the young woman beyond age 25. The appeal being heard under the pilot Regulations meant that the evidence of this young woman’s needs could be viewed holistically and recommendations made as to speech and language therapy and occupational therapy provision. This parent said she couldn’t imagine what the case would have been like if only the education parts of the EHC plan had been considered. Her experience of the pilot appeal hearing was: “It’s holistic. At the Tribunal, every area of the EHC plan was talked through step by step. It’s all relevant: one thing impacts on another.”
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In both these cases, the respective independent specialist colleges had, reportedly, advised the parents that they would have to appeal in order to have a chance of their LAs funding the placement. As Parent P10 said:
“It’s disappointing that we had to go to Tribunal. It was a very stressful process and living with a young woman with complex needs every day is stressful
enough. It’s disappointing that you have to fight for something that is, effectively, your right. But those choices are taken away, unless you fight for them.”
In one further case in our sample, Parent 49 would have appealed through the pilot but was wrongly told that it ended on 1 August 2016 instead of 31 August. Her son, aged 17, had complex SEND and his appeal had social care and health aspects to it. It focused on the argument that his needs had not been properly assessed and that therefore Section F (special educational provision) was inappropriate.
7.3.4 Other parents’ views about the Recommendations pilot
All but one of the 70 parents interviewed, who were not directly involved in the
Recommendations pilot, thought the conceptof it made good sense. This suggests that, among parents with experience of SEND disagreements, the principle that the First-tier Tribunal SEND should also be able to consider the health and social care aspects of an EHC plan has ‘face validity’. Illustrative comments included an
expectation that extending the power of the Tribunal in this way would encourage better joined-up working across education, health and social care professionals:
"[The Recommendations pilot] sounds like a positive step for parents. Anything that brings more cohesion to the different professionals involved would be a good thing." (Parent 88)
"I think [the Recommendations pilot] is a good idea because these are all
separate organisations [i.e. education, social care and health] and they don't talk to each other. They're not as transparent as they should be with each other and so information does get fragmented. There's no continuity at times because the support your child needs comes under three different umbrellas. If they all worked together, and it was multi-disciplinary working, like we'd all like, things would be better." (Parent 25)
Many expressed doubts over whether non-binding recommendations would be
effective. The majority view among this group of parents was that binding orders would be preferable to non-binding recommendations. However, some of the parents
interviewed were aware that there were different legal frameworks governing education, health and social care and so recognised that it might not be straightforward to have orders instead of non-binding recommendations. For example, one said:
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"Anything that is non-binding is open to problems. […] I want to see these [recommendations] being binding - but I recognise that there are issues around bringing education and health law together.” (Parent 89)