Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the (a) legal and (b) other costs incurred by local authorities in respect of special educational needs and disability tribunals in each of the last five years.

We do not systematically collect data on the legal or other costs incurred by local authorities in respect of special educational needs and disability (SEND) tribunals.

The Secretary of State and the Lord Chancellor commissioned a review of SEND disagreement resolution arrangements carried out by the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) at the University of Warwick, which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-disagreement-resolution-arrangements-in-england-review. As part of their analysis of the cost effectiveness of mediation, estimates were collected from a sample of local authorities on the hypothetical case costs in preparing for and attending the SEND Tribunal.

For a medium complexity case with no mediation and no hearing, the estimated cost to the local authority was £4,331 per appeal. For a case of the same complexity which involved no mediation but went to a full appeal, including a hearing, the estimated cost was £6,056 per appeal. These costs are broken down as follows:

The additional financial costs above relate to legal costs and overheads, for example, but have not been broken down further in the analysis.

The data collected, although offering a reasonable assessment of the costs incurred, are based on samples of which there is no way of assessing the extent to which they are representative of every local authority. As such the information should be considered indicative.