A v North Somerset Council

A transport appeal panel considering post-16 education transport must give particular regard to a learner’s individual disabilities and educational needs. It may nevertheless balance those needs against cost and the availability of an equally suitable nearer course. It must not treat course content as determinative while failing to consider delivery pattern, intensity, repetition, exercise or other identified needs. Even a non-statutory appeal panel must act fairly. It must make the case to be answered clear, including any local knowledge or expertise on which it relies. Irrationality requires an error of reasoning that robs the decision of logic. A statutory duty to have due regard to disability-related needs does not require a particular result, but those needs must genuinely be considered.

A, a 16-year-old learner with Williams Syndrome and significant physical, coordination and vulnerability needs, challenged North Somerset Council’s refusal to provide transport to a five-day specialist course at X College. The Council considered that a broadly equivalent three-day course at nearer Y College was available and that transport to X College would impose substantial additional cost.

The challenge alleged that the panel exceeded its role, acted irrationally, failed to treat school and college learners equally, omitted relevant factors, acted unfairly, and failed to comply with section 49A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The central questions were whether the decision was rationally and fairly reached under the post-16 transport scheme and whether the disability equality duty had been met.

1. Role of the panel. The panel was not required to provide transport to the college identified in an educational assessment. The claimant’s reliance on the special educational needs authorities went too far. The panel nevertheless had to give particular regard to the learner’s individual needs, while retaining the ability to weigh suitability, availability and cost.
2. Irrationality. The applicable test was the high threshold of public-law unreasonableness. Irrationality may arise where an error of reasoning means that the decision does not add up and is deprived of logic. The panel had evidence of A’s motor-skills needs, need for exercise, need for repetition and preference for a longer, less intense course. By concentrating to an inappropriately high degree on educational content, and failing properly to consider delivery times, intensity and those identified needs, it acted irrationally.
3. Procedural fairness. Although the panel was non-statutory and could rely on local knowledge, once an appeal procedure had been established it had to be conducted fairly. A and his representatives were not told precisely what local knowledge or expertise the panel members relied upon. That omission went to the root of fairness.
4. Policy and equality. Read as a whole, the Council’s policy sufficiently addressed disabled learners and the comparison between school and college transport. However, the panel erred in treating A’s choice as merely a matter of preference. Choice and the reasons why the preferred provision was necessary were relevant considerations.
5. Disability equality duty. The challenge under section 49A failed. The authority had not been shown to have omitted the regard required by the provision.
6. The panel’s decision was quashed and the matter remitted to a freshly constituted panel. The court declined to order transport directly because the statutory balancing exercise was entrusted to the education authority.

First-instance judicial review. The decision was quashed and remitted to a freshly constituted panel.