Bedfordshire County Council v Haslam & Ors

On an appeal concerning a statement of special educational needs, the Tribunal’s jurisdiction is confined to the child’s special educational needs and the special educational provision required to meet them, including the named school. The Tribunal may consider proposed non-educational provision, but it has no power to order it. A need for consistency between educational and non-educational provision does not thereby become special educational provision or justify refusing to name an otherwise suitable school. The statement must be read as a whole. The Tribunal’s specialist judgment on the boundary between educational and non-educational provision should generally be respected, but it must remain within its statutory jurisdiction.

Bedfordshire County Council brought a statutory appeal under section 11 of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992 against a decision of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal dated 14 January 2008.

The Tribunal found that Sunnyside School was appropriate special educational provision for Ben Haslam. It nevertheless named the parents’ proposed independent residential school because the Council’s proposed non-educational residential support at Maythorn was subject to parental consent and could not be named by the Tribunal. The central issue was whether the Tribunal had erred by treating the relationship between the educational provision at Sunnyside and the non-educational provision at Maythorn as a reason not to name Sunnyside.

1. Jurisdiction. The Tribunal’s jurisdiction under section 326(1A) of the Education Act 1996 was limited to the assessment of special educational needs and the special educational provision specified in the statement, including the name of the school. It had no power to order or name non-educational provision, which remained a matter for the Council’s discretion.
2. Educational and non-educational provision. The Tribunal had correctly identified a distinction between Ben’s education at Sunnyside and non-educational support at Maythorn. The authorities recognised a shared territory in which provision might be classified by expert judgment, case by case. The Tribunal’s conclusion on classification was entitled to respect.
3. Consistency. The requirement for a consistent approach across school and care settings concerned co-ordination between educational and non-educational provision. Its inclusion in Part 3 of the statement did not make it a special educational need or convert the non-educational elements into special educational provision. The decision had to be read as a whole, rather than by attaching decisive weight to isolated wording.
4. Error of law and result. Having concluded that Sunnyside provided suitable and appropriate special educational provision, the Tribunal should have named Sunnyside in Part 4. Its concern that it could not enforce attendance at Maythorn was understandable but irrelevant to its limited statutory jurisdiction. The Tribunal therefore erred in law. The court succeeded on grounds 1 to 3 and declined to determine grounds 4 and 5, which raised issues concerning section 20(7) of the Children Act 1989 and were unnecessary to the decision.

• High Court (Administrative Court): The statutory appeal from the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal was allowed on the principal grounds. The Tribunal’s decision was held to contain an error of law; submissions on the appropriate remedy were reserved.