Protection Gap


In her response to your report of the Law Society's representations to the Department for Education and Skills concerning the effective lack of availability of appeals to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal for looked-after children, the President of SENDIST states that the law permits a number of individuals to 'qualify' as a 'parent' so as to enable appeals to be brought to her tribunal (see [2007] Gazette, 22 February, 18). This is, of course, correct.



However, the Law Society's concerns are primarily that there are disproportionately large numbers of disabled children and children with special educational needs who are in the care of a local authority, many of whom have no effective 'parent' other than the corporate parent, namely, the local authority in whose care the child is placed. As a result, those children are, in effect, unlikely to have an independent, robust scrutinising 'parent' who may, if necessary, appeal to a tribunal for additional or different educational provision; not least because the body appealing and defending will be one and the same.



Accordingly, for many, albeit not necessarily all, children looked after by a local authority, there is a major gap in the law that leaves them unprotected.



David Ruebain, chairman of the Law Society's mental health and disability committee