Valuable addition to discrimination lawyer's bookshelf

In December 2024, HM Courts & Tribunals Service released its annual statistics for the activities of the Special Educational Needs and Disability First-tier Tribunal. This report noted a high volume of appeals, with about 10,000 this year. Most cases focused on disagreements over education, health and care plans. Of these, around 250 cases involved claims of disability discrimination against schools, highlighting ongoing challenges in ensuring fair treatment and reasonable adjustments for pupils with SEND.

The high volume of appeals reflects systemic strains within local authority decision-making processes and increasing judicial scrutiny of schools. 

This clear and concise guide by barrister Holly Littlewood of Spire Chambers is therefore timely. It sets out the fundamentals of the law relating to disability discrimination in schools and  the procedure for bringing a  claim in the tribunal.  

Littlewood’s guide serves as a vital tool in ensuring that information about these appeals is cost-effectively accessible and available to all parties to a dispute. 

She sets out the foundations of the law relating to disability discrimination, building the reader’s knowledge from the ground up by navigating through the Equality Act 2010 with reference to relevant secondary legislation. Littlewood explains the fundamentals of ‘who owes whom, what, and when?’ in the context of legal duties relating to disability within a school. She goes on to discuss the statutory definition of disability and provides a comprehensive breakdown of the different types of discrimination outlined in the Equality Act, setting out the key definitions, requirements and exceptions provided in the law. Hypothetical examples are used along with references to case law to contextualise the statute. Utilising this admirable methodology, the book offers families and schools, and their legal advisers, the opportunity to access clearer guidance to help them navigate the complexities of SEND systems effectively.

Littlewood presents ‘The Interrelationship Between Part 6 Chapter 1 EqA and Other Statutory Rights and Duties’ (chapter 9) in a way that remains accessible to those without a prior understanding of the law. This makes it a valuable guide to all public authorities, in the school context, who need to understand the wider legal framework. The section within this chapter on the interrelationship between Equality Act duties and SEND support is also particularly pertinent to claimants due to the obvious overlap between the areas of SEND and disability.  

The law is up to date at the time of publication (2025) and sets out recent legal developments – for example, the introduction of ‘same disadvantage discrimination’ into the Equality Act following the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, which stopped this principle being read down from the CJEU in CHEZ Razpredelenie [2015] IRLR 746 judgment.

The latter section is dedicated to the procedure for bringing and managing a claim. It draws together information from tribunal rules, guidance and practice directions into one convenient place, directing readers to further resources to navigate a claim throughout its life in the first-tier tribunal. It subsequently sets out the fundamentals of remedies and appeal rights.  

This book can serve as a standalone guide for a layperson involved in a claim for disability discrimination in schools in the tribunal. It is also a useful reference for public bodies and potential claimants looking to understand their legal rights and duties, providing a wider reading list through references for those who wish to supplement their knowledge further. 

It will be a very useful addition to many a discrimination lawyer’s bookshelf. 

Satnam Virdi is a solicitor and Maia Cohen a paralegal at SV Law Solicitors, London