11 September 2026
Hertfordshire's SEND "star chamber": the secret panel that decides children's school places is told to delete its own records — against the Council's own retention policy
In Hertfordshire, the panel that decides whether a child gets a specialist school place sits in private, keeps no minutes, and is instructed by its own rulebook to delete its papers after every meeting — "in line with GDPR". GDPR requires nothing of the kind. The Council's own retention schedule says these records must be kept for 35 years. And in 2012 the Council told the public that panel decisions and reasons were recorded and available to any parent who asked. Today a parent asking the same question is told "no recordings are made and there is no access". Somebody wrote the deletion rule; nobody has said who, when, on what advice, or whether anyone checked it against the policy the Council already had. The Justify Foundation has demanded the answers under the Freedom of Information Act.
The full press release is here
3 September 2026
We have written an open letter to all 78 Hertfordshire county councillors.
The subject is Section I of an EHC plan — the part that records, in law, which school a child will attend.
Where a parent asks for a specialist placement and the council's internal panel hasn't yet considered it, plans are being finalised anyway with a placeholder in Section I: usually the child's current school, sometimes no school at all.
We've asked Members for an investigation independent of the SEND service, and for nine questions to be answered publicly and within 4 weeks:
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Was the practice ever authorised — by whom, in what document, and on what date?
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If it was never authorised, how did five officers across at least three teams come to describe it in near-identical terms over 27 months?
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Was legal advice sought on whether Section I could be completed this way, or left blank?
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When did the Director of Children's Services, the Chief Executive, the Monitoring Officer, the Executive Member and the Leader each first become aware?
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Was it ever reported to Members, to the SEND Improvement Board or to the local area partnership's governance?
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Was it disclosed to Ofsted, the CQC or the Department for Education before the Improvement Notice was lifted on 15 April 2026?
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In how many plans finalised since 1 January 2024 was Section I completed this way — and how long did each child then wait for the panel's decision?
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What has been done for the children affected, or does the burden of correcting these entries fall on parents at Tribunal?
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Have the panel's records survived, or has the instruction to delete them been followed?
1 September 2026
Following an investigation by Justify Foundation, the charity has written to the Secretary of State for Education and to His Majesty's Chief Inspector asking them to examine how Hertfordshire County Council completes Section I of Education, Health and Care plans — the part of the plan that records, in law, which school a child will attend.
The investigation began with a single case and widened as the same pattern surfaced elsewhere. Justify gathered and analysed officers' own written communications in six unrelated families' cases, involving five different officers across at least three teams, spanning April 2024 to June 2026.
Those documents describe, in the officers' own words, final plans being issued with a placeholder in Section I — usually the child's existing school, sometimes no school named at all — in order to meet the 20-week statutory deadline while the council's Provision and Placement Panel had yet to consider the parent's request for a specialist placement. The real decision was then taken later, by the panel, outside the plan and outside the statutory process for amending it. The parent was left to appeal to the Tribunal against an entry that, on the council's own account, was never a decision on the merits.
The consequence reaches beyond the six families. A plan finalised with a placeholder is still counted as issued on time — and Hertfordshire's improved timeliness figures were substantially the basis on which the government's Improvement Notice was lifted on 15 April 2026.
Justify has asked the Secretary of State to request an area SEND re-inspection of the Hertfordshire local area partnership under section 20(1)(a) of the Children Act 2004; to require the council to produce that figure for every plan finalised since January 2024; and to keep her powers under sections 496, 497 and 497A of the Education Act 1996 under review in the light of it.
Full press release here
13 August 2026
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