R vs Oxfordshire County Council ex parte Pittick (1995)

Sam Pittick attended his local his mainstream school, with a statement which provided him with 20 hours of learning support. His parents were happy with the level of support and with his placement, believing that Sam, like other children with Down’s Syndrome, could have his needs best met in a mainstream school.

Then his parents heard from other parents that the LEA, Oxfordshire, was informing schools that they would, in future, have to meet the cost of the first five hours of a child’s statemented provision. It seemed to Sam’s parents that this would jeopardise his chances of being accepted by a mainstream secondary school come the time for transfer as, in doing so, the school would be also accepting responsibility for meeting the cost of five hours of his learning support. Also, Sam’s parents were unhappy at his present school having suddenly to find extra money for Sam from their special needs budget, and particularly concerned that this should not result in provision being reduced for other pupils at the school who also had special educational needs but who did not have the protection of statements.

Sam’s mother, Ann Pittick, advised and supported by IPSEA, approached a solicitor in order to apply for judicial review of the LEA’s actions. It took over a year for the case to be heard.

The judge ruled that it was not unlawful for the LEA to obtain agreement from a school, after a statement had been finalised, that part of the cost of the special educational provision set out on the statement should be met from the school’s own budget. The judge said..

“So far as can be gleaned from the papers, it was in about mid-1992 that the [LEA] began to explore the possibility that the school might pay out of its own budget for five hours of the ancillary support; and this was in the context of a wider initiative by which the cost of special provision being made for children with statements who were being educated in mainstream schools might, in part, be funded by the school, rather than in its entirety by the authority out of its central budget ...

The [LEA’s] decision ... could, of course, only be put into effect with the concurrence of the school ...

In the ordinary course of things, before the advent of the Education Reform Act 1988, it was no doubt factually inherent in the day to day administration of section 7(2) of the 1981 Education Act (which places on LEAs the duty to arrange the special educational provision set out in a statement) that the local authority would be bound to pay for the provision. Under the system of delegated budgets provided for by the Act of 1988, local authority schools ... have the power, within the limits of their budget, to decide how the money allocated to them shall be spent ... if in a particular case the school agrees to deploy some of its budget resources towards the cost of special educational provision for one of its children, there is no conceivable breach of section 7(2) ...

But if ... the school were suddenly to turn round and say that they were no longer prepared to apply any part of their budget to the cost of the 20 hours extra support, it is undoubted that the [LEA] would immediately have to meet the full cost. The provision would in any event be secure.”

LEAs can share the cost of statemented provision with schools by agreement, but must bear the whole cost if the school decides to end the arrangement .
“The provision would, in any event, be secure.”

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