Petition Make LAs fund parental chosen legal representation at SEND appeals

LAs are increasingly instructing expensive, external legal firms to represent them at SEND tribunals. Often this will be a barrister, regardless of whether the parents of the disabled child is represented. Tribunals are meant to be light touch, and families are not being given a fair hearing.

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Parents are at breaking point, constantly fighting for their disabled childrens' educational rights, while LAs spare no expense to 'win' tribunal claims.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09687590701259674?journalCode=

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?page=view&resid=3EA9503A53A03A77!230&authkey=!APLwZXHPVC_Xem8
To redress this imbalance, LAs should either not be allowed to instruct external legal representation, or if they do, they should fund legal representation of parents choice.

This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months

370 signatures

Progress of the petition towards its next target: 370 of 10,000 signatures required to get a government response

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10,000 signatures required to get a government response

Date closed 22 December 2016
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