SEND review needs to tackle rise in tribunal hearings

The Local Government Association has suggested that reforms designed to improve the lives of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have failed to prevent a huge rise in legal disputes and tribunal hearings over the support they receive.

Councils share the ambition of the government’s SEND reforms in 2014 under the Children and Families Act to reduce the need for parents to have to fight to get support.

A new study commissioned by the LGA has found that these aspirations have not been achieved due to the soaring level of cases that are not resolved without being taken to a tribunal. It comes as councils increasingly struggle with a lack of funding to meet significantly increased demand for SEND support.

Council leaders are calling on the government to urgently address this in its forthcoming review of the SEND system, so parents and carers avoid having to take cases to tribunal.

New figures in the report show that the number of appeals to tribunals over SEND disagreements has more than doubled since the reforms, rising by 111 per cent between 2013/14 and 2020/21.

Additionally, over nine in 10 appeals are decided in favour of families, overturning the original decision made by councils. Prior to the reforms, 83 per cent of tribunal appeals were made in favour of the appellant. Before the reforms in 2013/14, more disagreements were resolved before they got to a formal tribunal hearing with around a fifth of appeals (21 per cent) decided at a tribunal, whereas now the figure is almost two thirds (64 per cent).

While councils fully recognise the right of families to take appeals to tribunals, the LGA says the huge number of cases is indicative of fundamental imbalances in the SEND system.  

Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said: “It is vital the government’s SEND review urgently tackles the increasingly adversarial nature of the SEND system since the 2014 reforms and minimises the need for legal disputes and tribunal hearings, providing the support that every young person and their family needs. Parents rightly expect and aspire to see that their child has the best possible education and receives the best possible support, and councils do everything they can to achieve this, within the budgets made available by the government.

“However, the soaring number of tribunal hearings over the SEND support provided to a young person, and the overwhelming number decided in the appellant’s favour, is indicative of a system that is not working. The SEND reforms introduced in 2014, while of the very best intentions, have unfortunately not delivered. The factors that are driving these trends are symptomatic of challenges within the wider SEND system. This must be addressed in the forthcoming SEND review.”