I want to appeal sections B and F of my child’s EHC plan. Do I need to go to mediation first? Expand No, not if you do not want to. You have the right to mediation whenever you can appeal a decision in the SEND Tribunal, even if you only want to appeal section I (placement), but you don’t have to attend mediation. What you do need to do if you want to appeal sections B and F is contact the mediation adviser within 2 months of the decision letter/ letter enclosing the final EHC plan and speak to them about mediation. They will give you some information about mediation and you can decide if it is right for you. If not, that is fine. Simply tell the adviser and they must send to you a mediation certificate within 3 working days. You will need this certificate to make your appeal so keep hold of it. Your appeal form with the certificate needs to be submitted to the SEND Tribunal within 2 months from the date on your LA’s decision letter/ letter enclosing the final EHC plan or one month from the date on the mediation certificate, whichever is later. If you decide to give it a go, your LA will arrange for it and after the mediation you receive a mediation certificate. If you still need to appeal (because full agreement has not been reached), you can use this certificate to submit your appeal.
I am 17 years old and I want to appeal the contents of my EHC plan. My parents are helping me with my appeal. Should the appeal be in my name? Expand Yes, the appeal will be in your name. This is because, although you are not yet an adult, you have rights as a young person under the Children and Families Act 2014 including bringing an appeal in the SEND Tribunal. Your parents can help if you like. Simply tell your LA you are happy for paperwork and documents to be sent to your parents, if that is what you want. You can also ask the SEND Tribunal to send all appeal paperwork to your parents if you like, by ticking the ‘advocate’ box on page 9 of your SEND35 appeal form. So your LA and the SEND Tribunal knows who will be supporting you, you can provide your parents’ names as your advocates in: section 7 of your SEND35 appeal form or section 2 of the online SEND35 appeal form (depending which one you choose to use), and section 10 of your case review form. The only time an appeal will not be in the young person’s name is if they ‘lack capacity’ to make the decisions necessary to bring an appeal. If this is the case, then: if they have a ‘representative’ (usually a deputy appointed by the Court of Protection) then that representative will bring the appeal, or where no such representative has been appointed, the right of appeal is exercised by an ‘alternative person’, which would normally be the young person’s parent.
I am a young person living with my parents. Will I be eligible for legal aid to help me with my contents appeal? Expand Eligible people can obtain funding for ‘Legal Help’ for appeals to the SEND Tribunal from the Legal Aid Agency. Legal Help covers the preparation of the case (from submitting the appeal form through to preparation for the hearing) but does not cover representation at the hearing (except in exceptional circumstances). In some cases, a young person may qualify for legal aid in their own right. However, generally, if they live with their parents, as you do, the finances of the young person and parents will be ‘aggregated’ (so both are taken into account). You should always check to see if you are eligible for legal aid. Please see our page on where you can get help with your appeal for more on this. If you are eligible for legal aid, a solicitor will be able to draft and submit your appeal form for you and you may be able to obtain funding to cover the costs of obtaining private reports as evidence to support your case.
I want to appeal sections B (needs), F (provision) and I (placement) of my child’s EHC plan but I have not yet found a particular school that I want to ask to be named. What should I do? Expand In any case where the appeal concerns section I, you should include relevant information about the school or institution you want to be named with the appeal. This should include the Ofsted report, any prospectus, any reports or assessments about your child which the school or other institution has produced, and details of the costs of the placement. If you want your appeal to include section I (placement) but have not found a school you want to ask the SEND Tribunal to name, then describe the type of setting you would prefer in section I on your appeal form. You can say you are currently researching options or waiting for responses from settings. The SEND Tribunal, when it registers your case, will probably direct you to provide details of the specific institution that you wish the SEND Tribunal to name by a particular date. If you find a specific setting you would like named which matches the type of setting you described on the appeal form, you don’t need to amend your grounds of appeal. You should: tell the LA and SEND Tribunal of this via email, and enclose the offer of a place if it’s a wholly independent school, and check the directions in case the SEND Tribunal imposed a deadline for doing so and for what other information about the school you are required to submit. If you find a particular setting which is a different type to that described on the appeal form, for example in the description box you indicated you wanted mainstream and are now seeking a special school, a Request for Changes form (SEND7) asking to amend the grounds of appeal will be required.
I have lots of information I want to give on my paper appeal form about why I am appealing. Can I use a separate sheet to set these out and send this in with the appeal form? Expand Yes. That is a good idea. You need to answer the questions on the appeal form to provide detailed reasons for appealing. It is often easier to put these questions and the responses on a separate sheet (that you submit with the form) and write ‘See separate sheet headed Reasons for Appeal’ in the boxes on the form. If the appeal includes sections B and F of an EHC plan (the special educational needs of your child and the provision to meet those needs), this must be made clear and the detail of the amendments requested given. The SEND Tribunal may refuse to register an appeal if no grounds for the appeal to be made are properly identified on the appeal form.
My child is about to move from primary to secondary school. Should I tell the SEND Tribunal about this? Expand Yes. Whenever an appeal is about a child or young person’s transfer to a new phase of education, it is essential that you say this very clearly on the appeal form and in the email when the appeal form is submitted (if you are using the paper version). The SEND Tribunal is prioritising section I only phase transfer appeals and has some reserved hearing date slots for these types of appeals. Even if your appeal involves sections B and F as well as I, you should still tell the SEND Tribunal this is a phase transfer appeal.
I made an appeal about section I (placement) but now I want to widen my appeal to include sections B (needs) and F (provision). How can I do this? Expand If you want to amend your ground of appeal, you need to submit a Request for Changes form. This form is called a SEND 7. Before you send this form to the SEND Tribunal though, you must seek the LA’s response and this should be included on the form. You do not need its agreement, but you must give your LA a chance to respond. You should give your LA at least 5 working days to respond. If the request is urgent, and you are still waiting for a response from the LA, you should make clear on the form that you have asked the LA for its views and include a copy of your email to the LA if possible. The SEND Tribunal has said that due to the very high volume of Requests for Changes forms it receives, unless the matter is urgent, requests will be held on file and dealt with about 3-4 weeks before the hearing, so do not be surprised if you do not hear back quickly.
Should my child’s annual review still take place whilst I am appealing the contents of the EHC plan? Expand Yes. In the case of appeals about the contents of EHC plans, it is possible that an annual review will take place before the appeal is concluded. This is because an annual review must take place within 12 months of the last review, or of the date the EHC plan was first issued, and this is not affected by an ongoing appeal. The annual review could be an opportunity to try and resolve some of the issues in dispute. If your LA issues a new amended EHC plan after the annual review, this new plan is valid and enforceable and replaces the plan that has been appealed. If there are still parts of the EHC plan that you are unhappy with, you should ask the SEND Tribunal if the new plan can be treated as a working document in the current appeal, rather than registering a new appeal. The SEND Tribunal may decide that you should submit a new appeal and ask for the appeals to be consolidated (joined together), so be careful not to miss your deadline for obtaining a mediation certificate and appealing. Please see our information on working documents for more information.
After I made my appeal, my LA agreed to make the changes I was asking for in sections B and F. What do I need to do? Expand This depends on when the LA agreed to make the changes you are asking for. Within 30 working days of the appeal being sent to it, the LA is required to provide a response to the grounds of appeal. Agreeing to your changes before the response deadline If your LA decides not to oppose the appeal before it submits a response, it must tell the SEND Tribunal. Check with your LA that it has done this. Once the LA has told the SEND Tribunal, the appeal is to be treated as if it was determined in your favour. This means the SEND Tribunal is not required to make an order. Your LA must issue the amended EHC plan within five weeks of the notification by the LA to the SEND Tribunal that it is not opposing the appeal. This deadline is set out in The SEND Regulations 2014, regulation 45. If your LA does not comply with this deadline, this is equivalent to being in breach of an order of the SEND Tribunal. We have a template letter that you can use if this happens. You should not ask the SEND Tribunal to withdraw your contents appeal in this situation unless the parties have negotiated an agreed format for the amended EHC plan and the LA has issued an amended final EHC plan in the agreed form. Once you receive this and have checked it to make sure it contains everything you were expecting, then you can inform the SEND Tribunal that you want to withdraw your appeal. Your other option is to ask the SEND Tribunal to order the LA to change the EHC plan in the way the parties have agreed within a set time frame, by making a consent order (please see below and on our pages for more information on consent orders) Agreeing to your changes after the response deadline Once the response has been submitted, the parties will need the SEND Tribunal’s permission to end the appeal process. Both parties should agree what actions will be taken and request a consent order from the SEND Tribunal using the consent order proforma (SEND46). Permission is not guaranteed. The SEND Tribunal may refuse to allow the appeal to be ended, for example if the proposal by the parties fails to deal with all the issues in dispute, or it is very close to the hearing. In an appeal about the contents of an EHC plan and/or the name of the school in the EHC plan, if you decided not to pursue all of the changes that you originally wanted, or have accepted a different school or institution can be named, when requesting the consent order you should make clear you are happy with the outcome. If all the changes you were looking for have been agreed by your LA, you should make this clear. The consent order proforma does not refer to deadlines for your LA to take the agreed action. However, your LA must proceed as if the matter had been heard and determined in your favour, applying the deadlines set out in regulation 44 of The SEND Regulations 2014. If different deadlines have been agreed, they should be clearly defined and added to the form. IPSEA has a template letter that can be used if the LA fails to comply. The final agreed proposed consent order proforma will need to be signed by both parties then submitted to the SEND Tribunal explaining that the parties have reached agreement and request a consent order concluding the appeal on those terms. In an appeal involving the contents of an EHC plan, the final version of the working document will need to be sent with the request for a consent order. If you have decided not to pursue some of your proposed amendments then these should be removed or returned to the original text in this final version. All agreed amendments should be underlined as per the working document key.
My LA has sent me the first version of the working document but it only includes sections B, F and I of my child’s EHC plan. Can I ask that the other sections are included? It also does not contain any of the changes I am asking for in the appeal. Expand Some LAs create working documents only containing sections B, F and I, because the SEND Tribunal’s powers are limited to those parts (except for in the case of extended appeals where the SEND Tribunal can make recommendations about health and social care). This is unhelpful however, as you may be hoping to negotiate changes to sections A and/or E. In addition, it means the SEND Tribunal doesn't have the outcomes directly before it when considering the special educational needs and provision. You should ask your LA to issue the whole EHC plan and in a form which can be edited. If the LA delays in doing this, first send a reminder to the LA if necessary, before considering making a request to the SEND Tribunal to direct that the LA does so. The SEND Tribunal expects LAs to reflect the amendments a parent or young person has requested in their appeal form in the first version of the working document, but this rarely happens and generally the LA sends an unamended, editable version of the EHC plan which is under appeal, as has happened here. You should make sure all the amendments you are looking for are made on the working document, using the key set out in the SEND Tribunal’s Working document guidance (colour should not be used), and sent back to the LA.