Ms Angela O'Neill:

I refer to the AON legal cases. We get a huge number of legal cases and we defend very few of them because, in the main, it is quite straightforward. For example, if Joe Bloggs's AON is overdue, it is indefensible and the assessment just has to be provided. The cases we defend are the ones where there is a critical point of law on which we need clarification. I have said before that there are lots of areas of the Disability Act 2005 that are unclear and where it contradicts itself. Section 8(3) talks about an assessment of a child's education needs, and that is a case in point. We always interpreted that as saying that an adult would be referred for the section 8(3) assessment, while for children it was the relevant sections of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 that applied, and the latter had not been implemented. We had a Court of Appeal judgment last year that clarified that. It was not the answer we wanted but we had to defend that and go into court to get that judgment.

We defend few cases and we do so when we need clarification on something. They are expensive; there is no doubt about that. Resources are being used on legal fees that could be used in the health services in 1,001 other ways. The courts are no more satisfied with that than we are. I was in the High Court yesterday on that topic and we are working with our legal advisers to try to come up with a system whereby we can avoid children having to initiate judicial review proceedings and instead address concerns before they get to that stage, which minimises the costs.