What Happens After a Tribunal Hearing?

Whether you have a paper-based or ‘face to face’ online hearing, there are strict timescales that are applied once you receive your Tribunal Order. 

Up to 10 days after the appeal hearing, you will receive the ‘result’ as a Tribunal Order, emailed by SENDIST.   When SENDIST Judges and admin processes are extremely busy, these can take longer than 10 days.  If you have been waiting more than 10 days, it is worth contacting SENDIST by telephone to make sure that everything is in order and ensure that your case has not been overlooked. 

The Tribunal Order will explain what decision or decisions the Judge has made and why.   

Refusal to Assess Appeals 

When the Tribunal orders the LA to carry out EHC needs assessment, the LA must notify you that it will make an assessment within two weeks of the SENDIST order. Following the assessment: 

• if the LA decides not to issue an EHC plan, they must so notify you within 10 weeks of the SENDIST Tribunal order; and  

  
  

• if the LA decides to issue an EHC plan, they must issue the finalised EHC plan within 14 weeks of the SENDIST Tribunal order. 

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If the LA refuse to issue an EHCP following an EHC Needs Assessment, you can appeal this decision.  More details can be found here.  

Refusal to Issue Appeals 

When the Tribunal Orders the LA to issue an EHCP, the LA must issue a draft EHC plan within 5 weeks of the SENDIST order.  

When you receive your draft EHCP, you will have 15 days to check and respond to this.  It is imperative that your EHCP is thoroughly checked, and a robust response prepared and sent to your LA.  These webinars – one wording / two  professional evidence - will support you to do this and if you would prefer to use our industry leading bespoke draft checking service, please email EHCPcheck@empoweringSENDfamilies.co.uk for further details.   

You will find testimonials for our bespoke services on our website and Facebook business page - here  

B, F & I Appeals 

When the Tribunal Orders the LA to make changes to Sections B (needs), F (provision) and/or I (placement) of your child’s EHCP, the following applies: 

• Where the LA has been ordered to amend the special educational needs and/or provision specified in the EHC plan, the LA must send you an amended EHC plan within 5 weeks of the order being made. 

  
  

• Where the LA has been ordered to name a specific school, other institution or type of school or other institution, they must send you the amended EHC plan within two weeks. 

What Should I do if the LA does not Meet These Deadlines? 

If your LA fails to meet the legal deadlines set out above, SENDIST Tribunal cannot support you.  Their remit regarding changes to the EHCP ends once the Order is sent.  To challenge an LA who fails to meet final Tribunal Order deadlines the options to challenge this are: 

1. Use the LA’s formal complaints process - more details here 

   
   

2. Use Judicial Review Pre-Action Protocol – more details here 

So where do I go from here, how can Empowering Families of Children with SEND Ltd help me? 

Join our Facebook Support Group here 

Individual support meetings with Anna can be booked here  

And finally, you will find lots of useful video clips and free video and ‘podcast’ resources in our YouTube library here 

We are, and always will be, Stronger Together. 

You can find testimonials to our bespoke services on our website and Facebook business page - here