Special Education needs (SEND) tribunals and costs - Find a freedom of information request

This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

My request relates to Special Education Needs (SEND) tribunals and costs, and is as follows:

1.Please provide a monthly breakdown of the number of appeals made by parents, guardians, or other authorities, against any SEND decisions made by the council concerning a child's EHCP, from January 2018 - January 2022

2.Please provide a monthly budget breakdown of all money spent on SEND tribunals, from January 2018 - January 2022.

3.Please include any relevant or associated costs, for example solicitor costs, inhouse solicitor time, associated costs such as SEND team costs including days spent, social care costs including days spent, health costs including days spent, total cost for SEND mediation services, and any additional costs associated with SEND tribunal such as printing and admin time If possible, please break down the monthly costs as above or however best suits, but if a substantive response is not possible within the time frame, please just provide total/overall costs over this time period rather than breaking it down, to preclude the need of making a new request.

If that is still not possible, please prioritize spending on barristers and solicitors, but keep the information consistent across the given time period.

1.

Months

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

January

1

2

3

2

4

February

4

1

4

March

0

4

1

4

April

3

6

3

May

2

1

4

June

2

3

5

July

2

10

6

August

3

4

6

10

September

1

5

10

5

October

1

3

5

1

November

1

0

8

3

December

3

2

2.

	Legal Fees	Disbursements	Total For Month
Jan-18	£6,975.82	£0.00	£6,975.82
Feb-18	£6,336.22	£0.00	£6,336.22
Mar-18	£5,346.61	£0.00	£5,346.61
Apr-18	£5,758.17	£0.00	£5,758.17
May-18	£4,015.61	£5,717.63	£9,733.24
Jun-18	£5,211.65	£6,359.00	£11,570.65
Jul-18	£5,813.80	£0.00	£5,813.80
Aug-18	£3,790.77	£940.00	£4,730.77
Sep-18	£5,705.54	£0.00	£5,705.54
Oct-18	£5,753.58	£345.00	£6,098.58
Nov-18	£6,527.07	£4,787.00	£11,314.07
Dec-18	£3,649.31	£7,000.00	£10,649.31
Jan-19	£5,568.85	£1,085.00	£6,653.85
Feb-19	£4,016.29	£3,500.00	£7,516.29
Mar-19	£5,302.25	£5,130.30	£10,432.55
Total 18/19	£79,771.54	£34,863.93	£114,635.47

	Legal Fees	Disbursements	Total For Month
Apr-19	£4,929.17	£0.00	£4,929.17
May-19	£2,630.09	£0.00	£2,630.09
Jun-19	£1,801.50	£0.00	£1,801.50
Jul-19	£4,685.48	£24.00	£4,709.48
Aug-19	£4,685.74	£20.00	£4,705.74
Sep-19	£6,455.39	£0.00	£6,455.39
Oct-19	£6,267.26	£5.00	£6,272.26
Nov-19	£7,404.05	£0.00	£7,404.05
Dec-19	£5,245.01	£1,000.00	£6,245.01
Jan-20	£10,267.52	£0.00	£10,267.52
Feb-20	£5,887.89	£0.00	£5,887.89
Mar-20	£5,210.15	£0.00	£5,210.15
Total 19/20	£65,469.25	£1,049.00	£66,518.25

	Legal Fees	Disbursements	Total For Month
Apr-20	£6,368.89	£0.00	£6,368.89
May-20	£5,091.07	£0.00	£5,091.07
Jun-20	£3,785.27	£0.00	£3,785.27
Jul-20	£5,100.88	£0.00	£5,100.88
Aug-20	£2,359.54	£0.00	£2,359.54
Sep-20	£7,390.93	£0.00	£7,390.93
Oct-20	£10,819.07	£4,065.00	£14,884.07
Nov-20	£12,230.84	£0.00	£12,230.84
Dec-20	£9,869.81	£0.00	£9,869.81
Jan-21	£12,141.43	£5,875.00	£18,016.43
Feb-21	£12,596.79	£0.00	£12,596.79
Mar-21	£13,174.88	£500.00	£13,674.88
Total 20/21	£100,929.40	£10,440.00	£111,369.40

	Legal Fees	Disbursements	Total For Month
Apr-21	£11,815.53	£0.00	£11,815.53
May-21	£9,732.78	£5,125.00	£14,857.78
Jun-21	£11,073.02	£0.00	£11,073.02
Jul-21	£8,904.89	£0.00	£8,904.89
Aug-21	£9,120.42	£1,290.00	£10,410.42
Sep-21	£12,255.63	£0.00	£12,255.63
Oct-21	£8,011.39	£0.00	£8,011.39
Nov-21	£8,999.75	£0.00	£8,999.75
Dec-21	£5,326.60	£0.00	£5,326.60
Total	£85,240.01	£6,415.00	£91,655.01

It has not been possible to provide associated legal costs for the month of January as billing is not yet complete.

It has not been possible to provide costs for SEND Officer time, as this is not something that is routinely recorded. The costs associated with this is absorbed into several officers’ roles and it is not possible to identify hours associated with SEND tribunals, without many hours of auditing cases. It is anticipated that it would take 90 minutes per case to identify attributed SEND officer time. For 163 cases, this would total 244.5 hours of audit therefore this is considered to be in excess of reasonable staff time to provide this information.

FOI 3241137

24/01/22

22/02/22