2024 SEND Tribunal data is published showing appeals increased by 55%

On 12 December 2024, the Ministry of Justice (‘MoJ’) published the annual data for the Special Educational Needs and Disability (‘SEND’) Tribunal for the 2023/24 academic year. The publication can be found here.

What does the SEND Tribunal do?

The SEND Tribunal deals with appeals in England against local authority decisions about special educational needs (‘SEN’) and provision, including Educational, Health and Care (‘EHC’) plans of children and young people. The SEND Tribunal also deals with claims of disability discrimination against schools.

When a claim is made to the SEND Tribunal, the SEND Tribunal will look at the evidence provided and make a decision based on SEND law.

What does the annual data for the SEND Tribunal show?

The annual data shows a record-breaking increase in SEND Tribunal appeals. The number of SEND Tribunal appeals increased by 55% from the previous academic year. There were 21,000 registered appeals recorded in the 2023/24 academic year, up from less than 14,000 the year before.

Key reasons for the increase in appeals

Of the 21,000 registered appeals, 27% were against ‘refusal to secure an EHC needs assessment’, while 59% were in relation to the content of the EHC plans.

The MoJ say that the significant increase in registered appeals is likely a combination of the following:

• The 2014 SEN reforms which introduced EHC plans and extended the provision from birth to 25 years old.
• The expansion of the SEND Tribunal’s powers to make non-binding recommendations on health and social care.
• The growth in the number of families seeking EHC needs assessments and, subsequently, the rise in the number of children and young people with an EHC plan.

Outcomes of the 2023/24 SEND Tribunal appeals

There were 17,000 outcomes recorded. Out of the 17,000 outcomes recorded, 11,000 cases were decided by the SEND Tribunal. Of the 11,000 cases decided, the SEND Tribunal found in favour of the parent in 95% of the cases. This figure is actually down from 98% the year before but still illustrates that the local authority has a low success rate in defending SEND Tribunal appeals.

In terms of SEND Tribunal appeals concerning section I of an EHC plan, of the 700 decision notices analysed:

• 240 (34%) resulted in the parent preference.
• 200 (28%) resulted in the parent and local authority preference (this is when, at a hearing, the local authority agrees with the parent).
• 87 (12%) resulted in the local authority preference.
• 54 (8%) resulted in neither (this is when the type of school is in contention and the court determines the type of school).

The rest (18%) could not be determined, either due to the absence of relevant information within the decision notice or limitations of the data science method used.

Costs to local authorities

The Special Needs Jungle evaluated the costs to the public purse, and their evaluation is eye-watering. They estimate that in aggregate, local authorities were allocated £153 million of resources in 2023/24 to defend appeals against them in the SEND Tribunal, and that since the SEN reforms were implemented in September 2014, they estimate that local authorities have spent £580 million of resources defending SEND Tribunal appeals.

Disability discrimination claims

The data also shows that disability discrimination claims have increased by 9%. There were 360 registered disability discrimination claims in 2023/24, up from 330 in the previous year. Of these appeals, 24 (7%) were related to temporary exclusion from school and the remainder were uncategorised.

Of the disability discrimination claims, 81 claims were decided at hearing:

• 37% were dismissed.
• 63% upheld.

This compares to 64% dismissed and 36% upheld in 2022/23.

In summary

What the data shows is that there is a significant increase in SEND Tribunal appeals, and the overall local authority success rate in defending these appeals remains low. With that said, as demonstrated by the data in respect of Section I-only appeals, it is not a foregone conclusion that parents will win an appeal.