The full name of the Additional Support Needs Tribunal is ‘the Additional Support Needs jurisdiction of the Health and Education Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland’. Most people refer to it as the Additional Support Needs Tribunal, or just ‘the tribunal’.

The tribunal can hear two kinds of ‘appeal’, references and claims. These can be about certain kinds of appeals or disagreements about additional support for learning such as:

The tribunal considers the arguments and evidence put to them and decides what should happen next. They may decide either to uphold or overturn decisions made by local authorities or order them to do certain things. Local authorities must do what the tribunal orders them to do.

In most cases, the tribunal will consist of three people. One person will be a legal member who is an experienced lawyer. The other two will be specialist members, who have expertise in additional support for learning. Sometimes the legal member will consider the appeal or disagreement on their own.

You can make a reference to the tribunal about a local authority’s:

If you disagree with the contents of your child’s CSP, you can also make a reference to the tribunal about this.

Find out more in our website section on Co-ordinated support plans

You can make a reference to the tribunal about a local authority’s refusal of:

Find out more in our webpage on Placing Requests.

Find out more in our webpage on Placing Requests. **add link once created

You can make a reference to the tribunal about a local authority’s failure to meet its duties to plan for your child leaving school, including things like:

Find out more on our webpage Planning for leaving school.

You can make a reference to the tribunal about a local authority’s decision that:

Find out more in our webpage on Involving your child in decisions.  **add link once created

Find out more in our webpage on Involving your child in decisions

The tribunal can also hear claims of disability discrimination against local authorities or the managers of independent or grant-aided schools or nurseries.

Here are some examples of how a school, nursery, or local authority might discriminate against a disabled pupil:

Find out more on our web page about Equality rights.

You can resolve most disagreements without needing to use formal procedures such as the tribunal. For example, you have the right to ask for independent mediation with the local authority.

Find out more about steps you can take on our webpage on Solving problems with your child’s school. You can also contact the Enquire helpline for advice about what you can do in your situation.

If you are considering making a disability discrimination claim, you can seek advice from the Equality Advisory and Support Service about other ways that you might be able to resolve the situation. They can also help you to work out whether the situation would amount to discrimination, and if so, what kind of discrimination has occurred.

There is a time limit of two months for making a reference to the tribunal. Depending on the reason for your reference, the two months might start from:

If you are not sure when the deadline for making a reference will be for you, you can contact the tribunal administration for advice.

You should use this form to make a reference.

You can either submit your reference by post or by email to the tribunal. The reference form contains information about where to send it.

You should include copies of any relevant documents and letters with your application. If the tribunal needs more information about anything, they will ask you to provide this.

You can find more information and guidance on how to make a reference here.

There is a time limit of six months for making a claim to the tribunal, starting from the date of when the alleged discrimination happened.

You should use this form when making a disability discrimination claim to the tribunal.

You should include copies of any relevant documents and letters with your application. If the tribunal needs more information about anything, they will ask you to provide this.

You should also include details of what you would like the local authority, school, or nursery to do. For example, would you like them to apologise, train the staff who are working with your child, review their policies and procedures, or something else?

You can submit your claim either by post or by email to the tribunal, and you must also send a copy to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The claim form contains contact details for both.

References

If you wish to make a reference to the tribunal, there is a free advocacy and legal support service available called Let’s Talk ASN funded by the Scottish Government. They can help you complete the reference form and support you throughout the process of making a reference. They can also help you to explore whether there are other ways you could resolve the issue, such as mediation.

Claims

If you wish to make discrimination claim to the tribunal, you can seek advice from the Equality Advisory and Support Service.

Legal aid may be available depending on your circumstances. Contact the Scottish Legal Aid Board to find out if you are eligible: 0131 226 7061.

In some situations, the Equality and Human Rights Commission can sponsor cases if legal aid is not available: 0141 228 5910.

The Govan Law Centre Education Law Unit may be able to support you with a disability discrimination claim.

Checking your application

When the tribunal receives your form, they first need to make sure that your application is ‘competent’. If an application is ‘competent’ it means the tribunal can consider your reference or claim.

The tribunal can ask you for further detail at this point if they need it to be able to decide if they can hear the case.

Collecting the evidence

Once the tribunal decides they can consider your reference or claim, you and the local authority will have a period of time where you can submit any further evidence. This is called the ‘case statement period’ and is usually 30 working days.

In most cases, you will have the first 20 working days of this time to submit any further evidence you want the tribunal to consider. The local authority will then have the remaining 10 working days to submit their response to your evidence.

The tribunal will collect all the information together and number each document. This collection of documents is known as ‘the bundle’. They will send you and the local authority a copy of all the documents in the ‘bundle’.

Witnesses

During the case statement period, you should also think about who you would like to bring as a witness and provide a list of names to the tribunal. The witness(es) can either attend in person, provide written evidence, or speak to the tribunal via video or telephone link.

For references, you can call up to two witnesses.

For claims, you can bring up to five witnesses.

A witness can either be a ‘lay’ witness or a ‘skilled’ witness. A lay witness would give an account of issues relevant to the case. A skilled witness would also be asked to give an opinion, based on their professional knowledge.

Representation

You can have somebody to represent you throughout the process and at the hearing. This can be a lawyer but can also be someone from an organisation that is supporting you, or a family member or friend.

If you choose to have a representative, you must let the tribunal know in writing as soon as you can. The tribunal will then usually communicate with your representative rather than you.

If your hearing happens via video or phone call, you still have the right to be represented.

Once the case statement period has ended, the tribunal will arrange a telephone conference call with you (or your representative), the person representing the local authority, and the legal member of the tribunal. This is called the ‘case conference call’.

During this call, there will be:

The date for the hearing will usually be fixed at the case conference call, taking account of the availability of everyone who needs to be there. The tribunal will send you (or your representative) confirmation of the date, time and place of the hearing.

If your child’s views were not included in the ‘bundle’ of papers, the legal member from the tribunal might arrange for someone to collect them to make sure they are taken into account.

If necessary, the legal member from the tribunal can arrange more than one case conference call before the hearing. It is possible for the tribunal to decide your case without a hearing, instead using only the documents that you and the local authority submit. You and the local authority would both need to agree to this. If you want to explore this option, you can ask about this at the case conference call. It may be helpful to first take some advice on whether doing this might affect your ability to put your best case forward to the tribunal.

Tribunal hearings can be held in a range of different venues across Scotland, such as a Scottish Government building, business centre, hotel, university or college, or a tribunal office. When deciding the venue, the tribunal will consider where will be convenient for both parties, and make sure it is somewhere private.

Many hearings also now take place remotely via video or telephone. If this happens, the tribunal members need to make sure that everyone has the necessary equipment and facilities and can fully participate.

Hearings usually start at 10am and can last a full day, or sometimes longer.

As well as your representative and witnesses, you can also have a supporter with you at the hearing. This person would not be able to speak to the tribunal but can do things like provide you with moral support, take notes, help you to manage all the tribunal papers and speak to you quietly about what is happening. Your supporter can still attend if the hearing happens via video or phone call.

You will have agreed the order of the hearing during your case conference call. You and the local authority will be able to stay in the room (or in the video or phone call) throughout the hearing. Witnesses usually only stay while giving their evidence.

Depending on the case, the legal member might give you the tribunal’s decision at the end of the hearing. If the tribunal needs longer to decide, they will send their decision in writing. Either way, you will receive a full written statement of all the facts found by the tribunal and the reasons for their decision within 10 working days.

If the decision is in your favour, the local authority will then need to comply with the tribunal’s decision. What this will mean will depend on the reason for the hearing, for example they may need to:

You can either ask for a review of the tribunal’s decision or make an appeal to the Upper Tribunal. However, you cannot do this just because you disagree with the decision.

Review by the tribunal

You can ask the tribunal to review their decision if it is ‘necessary in the interests of justice to do so’. You must apply for a review within 14 days of the decision and explain why you think it is necessary. If the tribunal agrees that a review is necessary, they may arrange another hearing.

Appeal to the Upper Tribunal

You can ask to appeal the tribunal’s decision if you think the tribunal has not applied the law correctly or have not explained their decision properly. You must write to the tribunal to ask for permission to appeal within 30 days of the decision. You will need to identify which part of the law you think the tribunal has not applied correctly, and what you would like to happen.

Additional Support Needs Tribunal

The Tribunal website has information and guidance for parents, carers, young people and children about making a reference or claim.