The High Court has confirmed that the First-tier Tribunal, not judicial review, is the correct forum for disputes over the content of an Education, Health and Care Plan, even where a family faces significant delay and distress.
Facts
LW, a 14 year old with a complex profile including cerebral visual impairment, Down syndrome, and significant mental health difficulties, had an EHCP that named a residential placement which subsequently broke down. Following a period of dispute and a withdrawn Tribunal appeal, the local authority carried out a statutory reassessment and issued a new EHCP in August 2024. LW’s parents appealed that plan to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) and, separately, brought judicial review proceedings in the High Court challenging the lawfulness of the reassessment process itself.
Grounds argued
The claimant advanced three grounds: that the reassessment under sections 36 and 44 of the Children and Families Act 2014 was unlawfully incomplete, that the local authority had wrongly failed to conduct an annual review of the earlier plan, and that the local authority had failed to properly consider expert reports under Regulation 7 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.
Decision
Kate Grange KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, held that none of the three grounds were arguable and refused permission for judicial review. The judgment confirms that where a live Tribunal appeal exists over the content of an EHCP, the Tribunal is the appropriate forum, and the High Court will only intervene in exceptional circumstances akin to abuse of power. The judge accepted that the case’s specific pressures (Tribunal delay and LW’s mental health) were serious, but not different in kind from the position many families face while an appeal is pending.
Practical significance
This confirms a point that affects strategy in every EHCP dispute: judicial review is not a shortcut around Tribunal delay. Where the substance of a disagreement concerns what an EHCP should say, the appeal route is the Tribunal, and judicial review will not be granted permission simply because that route is slow. Judicial review remains available for genuinely separate failures, such as a local authority’s failure to act at all, but not as an alternative to a pending appeal on the merits.
Source
Full judgment: R (LW) v London Borough of Islington [2025] EWHC 703 (Admin), Find Case Law, The National Archives.
Keerat Solicitor acts exclusively for parents and young people in EHCP appeals and judicial review of education decisions across England. To discuss a specific case, get in touch.