This CrowdJustice appeal is asking for help get a case to Supreme Court to protect young people with additional needs and their families from being bullied and/or mistreated by their local authorities when they bring an appeal against the local authority to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal. If the appeal succeeds, it would bring this type of treatment within the scope of the Local Government Ombudsman. This sounds technical and obscure, but it could make a huge difference to families across the country.

Backstory

We started this case in 2019……the wheels of justice turn incredibly slowly ☹

Our local authority treated us both really badly during an appeal to Special Educational Needs (SEN) Tribunal that we had to bring in order to secure Philip appropriate post-19 education. We won the Tribunal appeal (huzzah!) and his educational package was fully funded but we were absolutely appalled at the way our local authority treated us at different points during the case. This included not seeking Philip’s views whilst claiming to have done so and then ignoring his views when they did get them; making scurrilous and unfounded accusations against me; moving the goalposts in relation to interim agreements they made.

We were aware of lots of other families who had been treated in a similar way by their local authorities and were sick of seeing families’ rights being trampled over by those whose job it was to support them.

To us it made sense that our appalling treatment by the local authority was not something that would be dealt with by the SEN Tribunal, as the Tribunal is designed to look at particular parts of an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and decide what education the child or young person needs.  We took our case to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) who we believed had jurisdiction to deal with our complaint and would support us in ensuring that local authorities would not be able to continue with this kind of behaviour.

However, the LGO said most of our complaint was outside his jurisdiction, meaning there was no deterrent to local authorities continuing to behave in this way and no remedy for parents who had been mistreated. Using legal aid (for which, thank goodness), we then brought a Judicial Review action against the LGO in the High Court. We were successful in the High Court on one point, which was that the local authority had made numerous claims that they had obtained Philip’s wishes and feelings when they had not, and as a result the LGO will have to reconsider whether to investigate our complaint about this  specific issue.

However, we were unsuccessful on other aspects of our case, which were that the LGO could consider the local authority’s behaviour during and around Tribunal proceedings. We appealed to the Court of Appeal, because we did not agree that the Tribunal could provide a remedy and therefore the LGO was the only available way to challenge the local authority’s behaviour.  We were again unsuccessful (sometimes, the law is an ass…….) leaving us with no legal remedy for our mistreatment.

Our last chance to change the law – we need your help!

Our legal team consists of solicitors at the top of their game from Irwin Mitchell as well as barristers who have appeared in many reported cases including leading Supreme Court cases on disability issues. They firmly believe we have a good case.

We are seeking crowdfunding of £15,000 to enable our legal team to request permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. If permission is granted, we will then submit another application for legal aid to fund the costs relating to the case being heard in the Supreme Court.

Should local authorities be able to get away with disrespecting, bullying, ignoring or maligning young people with additional needs and their families? Our goal, in a nutshell, is to ensure that if this happens, families have a remedy available to them via the LGO, to challenge the mistreatment. If the Supreme Court does not consider our case, then the law will remain that the LGO is not able to investigate any mistreatment that takes place in the run up to and during Tribunal proceedings. The Tribunal can only give remedies in very limited circumstances, therefore as the law stands this behaviour will only be investigated (and remedied) very rarely.

We can’t get to the Supreme Court without your help – please contribute and share this link with your families and friends and ask them to contribute.

If we are granted permission to appeal by the Supreme Court and then win the appeal, SEND families who have been mistreated by their local authorities will finally be able to challenge any mistreatment if it arises around a Tribunal appeal. We think this will have huge impact for families’ rights, and also the way local authorities behave to our families.

Thanks for your help!