Disadvantaged parents, vulnerable children at risk from new Tribunal |
||
|
July 2008 IPSEA has called on the Ministry of Justice to respond to IPSEA’s concerns about changes it is proposing to make to the Tribunal which hears parents’ appeals about the education of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Many parents of disabled children are themselves disabled, financially disadvantaged or up to their eyes in caring for their child, and need a clear, open and accessible way to remedy a bad decision about their children. Under the current Tribunal rules, parents have two months to lodge an appeal, then a further period of six weeks to collect together their evidence and arguments and to find witnesses who will support them. Now the Government proposes to halve the first period and totally cut the second one. IPSEA knows from its case work that these changes are going to severely disadvantage those children whose parents, for whatever reason, are less confident and/or less able to deal with the mounds of paperwork and tight deadlines the formal Tribunal processes entail. In a further change, the Tribunal is being given the power to order parents to appoint, jointly with the Local Authority, an expert to give evidence on their child. But the new rules do not say who has to pay for this expert. When disputes over children’s welfare end up in court, the court has the power to commission and pay itself for reports if that is held to be in the child’s best interests. IPSEA believes the Government should give exactly the same power to Tribunals. Otherwise, parents who are able to pay for independent reports will do so, but those who cannot afford it will be trapped into accepting reports from the Local Authority’s own chosen experts. IPSEA’s Chief Executive, Jane McConnell, said: “The whole idea behind these changes was to make the Tribunal more fair, more just and more accessible to users. In reality, it is the less well-off and the less confident parents who are going to be the ones who are most disadvantaged if the proposals go ahead without amendment. Which means of course that it is going to be their children who are less likely at the end of the day to receive the help at school which their needs call for. Tribunals, as well as courts, are required to regard the best interests of the child as their primary consideration under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Relying on what is often a selective and partisan report from one of the parties will represent, in IPSEA’s view, a failure to comply with the Convention. It is, therefore, essential that the Government gives the Tribunal the power to commission and pay for reports when the child’s best interests requires this.” IPSEA is responding to the consultation on the First Tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) Rules, see: Article 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, para. 1, states: ‘In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.’ |
Download IPSEA's full submission as a PDF |
|
|
|