02.12 Does the LA have to consult prior to making budgetary cuts?
Noddy 'no-nonsense' Guide
Authors: David Wolfe QC, Leon Glenister
14 Feb 2022
A: SenseCheck
- 1 Yes
- 0 No
- 0 Other
- 14 Feb 2022
-
Yes
|
Complex
Yes. Where the LA is making significant and sufficiently rigid cuts in SEN spend as part of budget setting, it has discharge the “public sector equality duty” (under Equality Act 2010 s149); has to consult under CFA2014 s27 and common law; and has to have regard under the Children Act 2004 s11: R (KE, IE, CH) v Bristol CC [2018] EWHC 2103 (Admin).
However, the duty to consult in CFA2014 s27 is a single and indivisible duty to consult those listed concerned with consideration at a strategic level of the local provision for SEN, and the decision on whether something is a “trigger” to consult is for the LA unless the decision not to consult was legally “irrational”: R (D) v Hackney LBC [2020] EWCA Civ 518#44-46.
Go to Glossary
14 Feb 2022
|