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Legal inequality over children with additional needs |
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Monday, 28 January 2008 |
Parents who want to challenge council decisions on the additional support needs of their children at school are facing an uphill battle to get justice, a leading parents’ advocate has warned.
Lorraine Dilworth, of the Independent Specialist Advocacy Service
(ISEA), which works across all 32 council areas and helps the majority
of families who go to an Additional Support Tribunal, said that the
original spirit of the Additional Support for Learning Act was that
neither councils nor parents would have professional legal
representation.
However, she said that in fact, local authorities are now routinely
using their own solicitors rather than education officers to represent
them against parents at tribunals, and that on three occasions,
councils had even secured the service of advocates.
This is a trend that has developed over the last few months, Dilworth
said, and the councils that have used advocates include Edinburgh and
Aberdeen, which in a tribunal starting just last week, used a team of
an advocate and a senior solicitor to present their case.
In contrast, parents are not even entitled to legal aid to help them
fight their cases. "Many parents have to rely on non-legal
representation, which is very thin on the ground," said Dilworth, "and
which can cause additional difficulty if the expectation is to
sometimes deal with directions from the case convener as well as giving
a legal summing up."
Edinburgh declined to comment because, it said, the case in question
was still ongoing, and staff at Aberdeen were not available for
comment. However, COSLA spokesperson for education, children and young
people Isabel Hutton stressed that local authorities are committed to
meeting the needs of all children and their families: "COSLA will be
working with the Scottish Government on the review of the
implementation of the Additional Support for Learning Act."
As well as councils using professional legal representation in
tribunals, Dilworth pointed out that decisions made at tribunal were
being challenged far more than originally anticipated in the courts.
"We have also seen parental determination challenging the tribunal’s
decision on a point of law in the Court of Session, not once or twice,
as was reported to Parliament would be the normal yearly uptake, but on
several occasions. The majority have been successful, but this comes at
a cost."
Dilworth said that one parent reported that the time lost – and the
financial outlay of nearly £15,000 incurred by going through the system
– did not just have a serious detrimental effect on the family itself,
but that the main issues affecting their child had been lost in legal
arguments.
One person has commented on this article. 1. Legal inequality over children with additional needs
Eileen Prior, Unregistered This is a very distressing situation which, sadly, was widely predicted by many groups who were involved in the consultation on the ASL Bill. The review of the workings of the Act must take into account this fundamental inequity.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 28 January 2008 )
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