The appellant or claimant will normally have 20 working days to submit all written evidence which he or she wishes to rely on and may submit a written statement of arguments (known as the case statement). Witness statements can also be produced.
The Education Authority (or Responsible Body) will have the final 10 working days of the case statement period to submit all the documentation it wishes to rely on in its response to the reference or claim.
As an appellant or claimant you should carefully consider any information you wish to provide in order that the tribunal can focus on relevant material, if you have any relevant up-to-date information or written reports you can send them with your case statement. There is no requirement on the appellant or claimant to produce a case statement but there is a requirement for the Education Authority or Responsible Body to respond, otherwise they may no longer be entitled to take part in those proceedings (The First-tier Tribunal for Scotland Health and Education Chamber Rules of Procedure 2018 ('the 2018 Rules') (schedule to SSI 2017/366), rules 19 and 66). The response must say whether the claim or reference is opposed, it must state why and provide evidence to support this. If the information in the reference or claim is sufficiently detailed, the Education Authority or Responsible Body will be able to make an informed response and will have no need to duplicate the documents already received.
The bundle of documents
Once the case statement period has ended we will send all the papers which will be considered by the tribunal, to parties or their representatives, we call this the ‘bundle’. This contains all the information provided by the parties, as well as the original reference and any preliminary decisions or directions made by the legal member.
