[2025] UKUT 010 (AAC)

This ground relates to the First-tier Tribunal’s requirement for D’s EHC Plan to include provision for him to receive 5 hours weekly 2:1 support in order to access the community, six weekly risk assessments to monitor the continued need for such support and the training required of the support worker who would accompany the ABA-trained community support worker. For the reasons given below, I do not accept that the Appellant was unfairly deprived of the opportunity to make submissions about these matters.

The Appellant made submissions to the First-tier Tribunal about the weekly 2:1 support required when D accessed the community. Fairness did not require the Appellant to be given the opportunity to make submissions on the local authority’s proposal that 5 hours weekly support would be sufficient. The Appellant knew that the amount of weekly community 2:1 support was in issue, and she put their case on the point to the Tribunal. Fairness did not require the Tribunal to pause making its decision so that the Appellants could comment on the authority’s specific proposal. This was a very specific point, and all fairness required was the opportunity to make submissions on the issue in dispute namely the weekly amount of 2:1 support. The Appellant was given that opportunity.

Regarding six-weekly risk assessments, the provision ordered by the First-tier Tribunal reflected that recommended in the Appellant’s evidence. The 29 April 2022 email written by Ms Dennison of Skybound stated, “this ratio [2:1] would be reviewed on a regular basis by reviewing the incident forms of how often 2 people were needed to support in each community location”. The provision ordered was no more than a reformulation of Ms Dennison’s recommendation. A party cannot argue that a tribunal acted unfairly by accepting an argument made by that party.

Finally, the requirement for the additional support worker to have restraint training. Ms Dennison’s email of 29 April 2022 said that D’s behaviour when accessing the community meant that, if only one support worker accompanied him, there would be a risk of death or serious life-changing injuries to D or others. Ms Dennison also wrote, “all physical intervention training that I am aware of would require 2 people to support someone who is eloping”. The only reasonable inference to be drawn from this statement is that Ms Dennison thought that whoever accompanied D in the community needed to have ‘physical intervention training’. The First-tier Tribunal’s requirement for the additional support worker to have restraint training was, as with six-weekly risk assessments, no more than a reformulation, without material alteration, of Ms Dennison’s recommendation. Again, the Appellant cannot argue that the Tribunal acted unfairly by agreeing to a suggestion made within the evidence that she presented to the Tribunal.

For the above reasons, Ground 1 is not made out.