Transfer of the functions of Education Appeal Committees to the Scottish Tribunals: consultation analysis

2. Introduction

2.1 Background to the consultation

Local authorities are required to set up and maintain appeal committees. The great majority of the appeals considered by these appeal committees relate to school admission placing requests and a smaller number to exclusions from school.

The Tribunals (Scotland) Act 2014 (“the 2014 Act”) created a new two-tier structure for devolved tribunals, organised into the First-tier Tribunal which is a tribunal of first instance and the Upper Tribunal which hears appeals from the First-tier Tribunal and, in some specific circumstances, first instance appeals. These are known collectively as the Scottish Tribunals. In schedule 1 of the 2014 Act, appeal committees are listed as one of the tribunals, which will transfer to the Scottish Tribunals at such time and in so far as Scottish Ministers consider appropriate.

The 2014 Act contains powers to make the secondary legislation required to amend the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (“the 1980 Act”) and transfer the functions of appeal committees to the First-tier Tribunal. Those functions would be transferred to the Health and Education Chamber, which also houses the functions of the former Additional Support Needs Tribunals for Scotland (generally referred to as the Additional Support Needs jurisdiction).

2.2 Format of the consultation

The consultation ran from 14 November 2022 to 6 February 2023. Views were invited on three questions in relation to whether Education Appeal Committees should transfer to the Scottish Tribunals and seeking views on any improvements that could be made to the current system. The questions are summarised as follows:

• Do you agree that appeal committees should transfer to the Scottish Tribunals?
• Do you consider that appeal committees should remain with local authorities but with improvements to how they operate?
• Do you consider that no changes should be made to how appeal committees operate?

2.3 Format of this consultation report

This consultation analysis report is in two parts: a quantitative analysis of the consultation responses in section 3.5, and a qualitative analysis in section 4.1 which sets out the main themes that were gathered from the consultation responses. Where necessary, comments are provided by the Scottish Government to give further clarity or explanation.

Please note that the discussion in section 4.1 does not include consideration of each individual comment made, rather the most relevant themes mentioned by multiple respondents.

2.4 Data protection and the consultation

To ensure compliance with data protection requirements, respondents were asked by the Scottish Government if their responses could be published online. The appropriate data redactions have been implemented dependent upon respondents’ answers to this question. Where respondents have given permission to publish their response without name, quotations have been provided with the appropriate identifying data redacted. To provide context to the response, we have provided the details of the general category to which the respondent has been identified as belonging.

To help illustrate further the key themes explored in the consultation responses some quotations have been included within the discussion below.

No quotations have been provided from respondents who provided an answer “do not publish response”. However, these responses formed part of our overall consideration and analysis of the consultation responses.