Shadow Counsel General and North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has again raised concerns that vulnerable children and their families in Wales are being let down because the Education Tribunal for Wales lacks any enforcement powers.
Mr Isherwood, who Shadows the Counsel General, has repeatedly raised the matter with Welsh Government Ministers, but in today’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament he told the Counsel General that nothing has changed, and families continue to contact him.
In June 2023, the Counsel General published the White Paper consultation entitled “a new tribunal system for Wales”, which closed last October.
Mr Isherwood said:
“Responding to your Statement here last June on “Tribunal Reform and Wales’s Evolving Justice Landscape”, I again raised concerns with you that vulnerable children and their families in Wales are being let down because the Education Tribunal for Wales lacks any enforcement powers and cannot take further enforcement action when the relevant public bodies fail to carry out their orders.
“Despite the High Court ruling in 2018 that the exclusion of an Autistic pupil for behaviour arising from their Autism was unlawful, I continue to receive North Wales casework where this is happening.”
He added:
“As you develop the legislative changes you propose to reform the Tribunal System in Wales, how will you therefore respond to the 80% of positive responses to the question in the consultation asking whether respondents agreed that the jurisdiction of school exclusion appeal panels should be transferred to the First-tier Tribunal for Wales, with the President of the Education Tribunal for Wales stating that ‘The specialist expertise of our Tribunal Specialist Members mean that we are best place to make fair and just decisions which are independent of an individual School or Local Authority process’?”
He also asked the Counsel General how he will respond to the 94% of positive responses to the question in the consultation asking whether the respondents agreed with the proposed statutory duty to uphold judicial independence applying to all those with responsibility for the administration of justice as that applies to the reformed tribunal system in Wales, and to the 91% of positive responses to the question in the consultation asking whether respondents agreed that the jurisdictions of the Welsh Tribunals should be transferred to the First-tier Tribunal for Wales, with some of them making the important point that: ‘Disruption should be kept to a minimum with no adverse impact on the ongoing business of each tribunal’.