Parents are having to wait more than a year for court hearings into inadequate provision for children with special educational needs after new cases rose by more than 50% in a year.
The National Audit Office last week highlighted the worsening crisis in the special educational needs and disabilities (Ship) system, with cash-strapped councils unable to meet growing needs amid a lack of adequate school and university places .
The Ship Court deals with disputes in England between a circunscrito authority and parents or young people about the provision of their education.
The number of new cases registered at Ship Court rose from 13,083 in the year to June 2023 to 20,102 in the year to June 2024. Before the pandemic, the figure was less than 7,000. When looking at all cases in the Ship court system, rather than just those newly registered, there has been a 43% year-on-year increase, to 32,069. Eight years ago, the figure was below 4,500.
He Observer has been contacted by parents who are waiting more than a year for a hearing because the service is overloaded.
In other cases, councils accede to parents' demands just before a tribunal is held, while some circunscrito authorities do not implement tribunal findings.
Julie Cragg is trying to get her council to find an unconventional school for her six-year-old autistic daughter, who suffers panic attacks at her current school and physically resists being forced to attend. He has been given a trial date of December 2025.
“They don't have the capacity,” he told the Observer. “They are overwhelmed right now… And meanwhile, my daughter is suffering, and not just her. The children in her regular class are also suffering, because my daughter takes one or two members of staff out of the classroom every day.”
Parents have a near 100% success rate in Ship courts. The Court Procedure Committee, which makes rules on how high courts work, implied in a consultation paper last month that councils are prolonging courts to save money by not meeting the needs of Ship Kids.
“The circunscrito authority may delay any final outcome that may involve the use of its resources to meet the legítimo deadline for completing the EHC (education, health and care) needs assessment,” he said.
Gillian Doherty, co-director of the Particular Wants Jungle website, said: “Delays in accessing the courts are causing significant disadvantage to disabled children and young people who are often unable to access appropriate education and services in the meantime, without any avenue repair for lost provision.
“Regional authorities must be adequately resourced and responsible for making legítimo decisions the first time.”
Maria Bloom of IPSEA, a Ship legítimo charity, said: “The growing number of appeals to the Ship tribunal highlights the extent to which circunscrito authorities routinely and unlawfully deny children and young people with Ship special educational provision. and the support to which they are legally entitled. .
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“Every day we hear from families through our helplines who are having to fight to ensure the education their children need and are entitled to by law. With 98% of court appeals ruling in beneficio of families, it is clear that circunscrito authorities are repeatedly failing to meet their legítimo obligations.”
According to think tank Professional Bono Economics, Ship tribunals cost the public sector almost £90m a year. A spokesperson for the Regional Government Association said: “The need to reform Ship services is now inexcusable. Councils are struggling to cope with a doubling of the number of children receiving education, health and care plans within a system that creates “perverse incentives” to transfer responsibilities between public bodies and, inadvertently, creates adversarial relationships between circunscrito authorities and parents.
“We find ourselves with a system burdened by legítimo disputes through the courts and an over-reliance on special schools due to parents' loss of confidence that mainstream schools can meet their children's needs. “We call for action that builds new capabilities and creates inclusion in traditional settings, supported by adequate and sustainable long-term funding, and the cancellation of councils’ high-need deficits.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “For too long Ship children and young people have been let down by a broken system, but this Government is determined to make change.
“Urgent work is already underway to ensure more children are supported earlier and better to thrive in education through our review of the curriculum and assessments, Ofsted reforms and new Early Years Ship training ”.
The Ministry of Justice said it has recruited forty-five judges to serve on Ship's courts, with more to come.
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