Tribunal hearing dates continue to be a growing concern for parents and professionals working within the system. As many of you will have read in our most recent newsletter, Tribunal hearing dates were being listed in September 2023. Current listings at the time of writing, just a few weeks after, are now November 2023!
However, as also set out within the recent newsletter, the Tribunal confirmed that they had held dates for phase transfer appeals and for those children and young people without a placement, to be heard earlier. The good news is that we have seen confirmation of this coming through in the appeals that we have submitted. For a recent appeal submitted for a child out of education, we received a hearing date for April 2023.
For parents who have already obtained their right of appeal for phase transfers, we have seen Tribunal listings coming back with November 2023 dates and the user group meeting advice being ignored. However, these are being rectified with request for changes to bring the dates forward and resulting in hearings in time for September 2023.
Therefore, for those appeals that are phase transfer and out of school, at the current time it is possible to get earlier hearing dates and the information provided within the user group meeting is being followed. This will provide some much-needed comfort, for many parents and professionals alike, moving forward.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no immediate fix for earlier hearing dates for any other type of appeal being submitted. Creative thinking is needed in trying to bring these hearing dates earlier and for some appeals this has proved successful, but there is no set guidance to rely on