R (ZK) v London Borough of Redbridge

The claimant, a 12 year old pupil with severe visual impairment and an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), challenged the lawfulness of the local authority's arrangements for providing specialist teaching assistant support in mainstream schools. The principal legal questions were whether Redbridge's "decentralised" model (in which schools employ teaching assistants and the authority commissions training and specialist advisory services from a provider, JCES) was irrational or otherwise unlawful under public law principles (Wednesbury), whether it created an unacceptable risk of failure to secure the provision required by section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014, and whether it amounted to unlawful discrimination or a failure to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 and Article 14 ECHR read with Article 8 and/or Article 2 of Protocol 1.

The court analysed evidence including the EHCP, the local contract with JCES, inspection material and witness statements. It held that the decentralised arrangements were not inherently irrational, did not create an inevitable or unacceptable risk of statutory non‑compliance with section 42, and did not give rise to unlawful indirect discrimination or a failure to make reasonable adjustments. The court also rejected the argument that Redbridge had failed to discharge the section 27 duty to keep SEN provision under review, finding that a mix of strategic and specific review steps (including a High Needs Review and the annual commissioning process) satisfied section 27. The public sector equality duty (section 149) challenge likewise failed.

Background and parties: The claimant is a blind and partially deaf 12 year old in mainstream secondary education in Redbridge. She is the subject of an EHCP specifying significant specialist provision including QTVI input and specialist teaching assistant support trained in Grade 2 Unified English Braille (UEB). The claim was brought by her mother as litigation friend against the London Borough of Redbridge.

Nature of the application: The claimant sought declaratory and/or quashing relief at first instance challenging the legality of Redbridge's borough‑wide arrangements for providing specialist teaching assistants to visually impaired pupils in mainstream schools. The challenge was generic rather than an individual complaint about compliance with a particular EHCP.

Issues framed:

• Whether Redbridge's decentralised arrangements were irrational or made without taking relevant considerations into account (Wednesbury review) and whether they posed an unacceptable risk of statutory non‑compliance with section 42 Children and Families Act 2014;
• Whether the arrangements amounted to indirect discrimination under Article 14 ECHR read with Article 8 and/or Article 2 of Protocol 1, or under the Equality Act 2010 (sections 6, 19 and 29(6)), or a failure to make reasonable adjustments (sections 20, 21 and 29(7) and Schedule 2);
• Whether Redbridge had breached the section 27 duty to keep education and care provision under review; and
• Whether the public sector equality duty (section 149) had been breached.

Evidence: Material before the court included the claimant's EHCP (13 September 2018), the contract between Redbridge and the Joseph Clarke Educational Service (JCES) for QTVI and training services, an Ofsted/CQC inspection report (June 2018) commenting on transition arrangements, witness statements from the claimant's mother, school staff and local authority officers, and statistical material indicating that visually impaired Braille users in Redbridge were low in number.

Court's reasoning and outcome: The court found that the asserted disadvantages (delay in recruiting and training teaching assistants when pupils change schools; narrowing of school choice; risk of redeployment of school‑employed assistants; and gaps when assistants are absent) were not inevitable or so likely as to render the decentralised arrangements irrational or to create an inherent breach of the section 42 duty. The court observed that forward planning is required in any model and that a centralised model would not necessarily eliminate lead‑time problems for low incidence needs. On discrimination and reasonable adjustment grounds, the court held that at the generic level the claimant did not establish that the arrangements put visually impaired pupils at a material disadvantage compared to other pupils. On section 27, the court accepted that a programmematic mix of strategic and specific reviews (including a High Needs Review and the annual commissioning of JCES services) can satisfy the statutory duty and that Redbridge had not failed to discharge section 27. The section 149 public sector equality duty challenge also failed because the arrangements were specifically directed at meeting the needs identified in EHCPs.

Disposition: All claims were dismissed at first instance.

The claim is dismissed. The court held that Redbridge's decentralised model of providing specialist teaching assistant support through school‑employed assistants trained and supported via a contract with JCES was neither irrational nor inherently likely to breach its duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 (including section 42). The court further held that the evidence did not establish indirect discrimination, a failure to make reasonable adjustments, a breach of the section 27 review duty, nor a breach of the public sector equality duty; accordingly the claimant's legal challenges failed.