Hundreds of children in care who have special educational needs are falling through a hole in the law that prevents them from gaining access to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal, solicitors have claimed.


In a submission to the Department for Education and Skills, the Law Society said the Green Paper on improving services to children in care failed to consider the problem faced by children with special educational needs who have no biological parent to share responsibility for their care with the local authority.



The only way in which a tribunal can consider an appeal is if a parent brings it, but for those children in the care of a local authority, the only 'parent' is the local authority - the body that made the original decision.



It said: 'The Law Society is concerned that this represents a significant lacuna in the statutory framework. We believe there may be up to 800 children who are severely disadvantaged, and for whom there is no effective scrutiny whatsoever to prevent them from falling through the safety net established by legislation.'



Neil Rose