Court of Appeal

Published January 3, 2008

Regina (M) v Sutton London Borough Council

Where a local authority specified the parents’ choice of school in a special educational needs statement on condition that the parents paid for transport as there were other nearer suitable mainstream schools, the authority was not obliged to provide free transport to that school.

The Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Pill, Lord Justice Moore-Bick and Lord Justice Richards) so stated on November 21, 2007, when allowing the appeal of Sutton London Borough Council against a decision of Mr Justice Goldring ( The Times March 1, 2007) that the authority could not decline free transport to D, claiming by his litigation friend M, in reliance on a note in a special educational needs statement.

LORD JUSTICE MOORE-BICK said that a conditional nomination of a school was consistent with the statutory provisions in section 324 of the Education Act 1996 provided the local authority also complied with its obligation to specify the type of school, or if it considered it appropriate to do so, the specific school which it considered to be suitable for the child.

Here, the nomination of the school was conditional upon his parents taking responsibility for getting him to and from that school, failing which the council confined itself to specifying the type of school, mainstream primary, it considered would be appropriate for him. That was sufficient to comply with the statutory provisions.

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