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East Sussex County Council
Data availableSouth East
516
appeals registered, 2024 (official DfE figure)
475
appeals registered, 2025 (official DfE figure)
Data available. At least one Freedom of Information response gives real, extractable figures on tribunal appeals or outcomes for this council.
This council says it doesn't track this. In its FOI response, East Sussex County Council told the requester it does not categorise SEND tribunal appeals as simply "won" or "lost" — most are resolved by consent order rather than a contested ruling. See why that's true almost everywhere.
Estimated outcome breakdown
Estimated, not reported
Resolved before hearing — 344 (72.6%)
Contested, council lost — 87 (18.4%)
Contested, council won — 23 (4.9%)
Partially split — 20 (4.2%)
This council's own answer doesn't give a usable outcome breakdown. This estimate applies the pooled England-wide outcome rate (no regional sample was large enough to trust on its own) to this council's own real, officially-published appeal volume for 2025 (475 appeals) — see how estimates work.
Freedom of Information responses
Partially successful
Requests, for SEND Tribunal cases involving ESCC from 1 Jan 2018 to present: (1) total case count; (2) number decided for parents/carers; (3) number decided for ESCC; (4) number where agreement reached before hearing (conceded/settled); (5) breakdown of outcomes by year 2018-present; (6) how many cases from a 2018 parliamentary submission resulted in parents winning. Council's response letter says it was unable to provide all the information sought -- the substantive answer sits in two attachments (20790215.xlsx and Response some not held.pdf) that rendered empty via automated tools in this session. No numeric figures were recoverable.
Caveat: Figures not extracted -- both attachments render empty via WhatDoTheyKnow's HTML preview. Response is explicitly partial, so an unknown subset of the 6 questions was actually answered. This is the single most promising unopened lead in the whole South East sweep -- the question design exactly matches the project's needs.
Re-use terms stated by the council: Response states: 'any information we provide is subject to the copyright and reuse of information terms and conditions' (links to East Sussex County Council's standard reuse policy).
Partially successful
Appeals lodged with SENDIST by financial year: Apr 2013-Mar 2014 = 56; Apr 2014-Mar 2015 = 42; Apr 2015-Mar 2016 = 77. New EHC plans/Statements agreed by academic year: 2013/14 = 240; 2014/15 = 219; 2015/16 = 271. The core ask -- won/conceded/lost broken down by appeal category (Statements parts 2/3/4, EHCP, refusal-to-assess) -- was explicitly refused: 'East Sussex County Council does not hold the above data in a form that would allow us to answer this question within the appropriate limit... interrogation of 1,234 electronic folders... would still take in excess of 60 hours,' citing section 12 FOIA cost exemption.
Caveat: The requested won/lost/conceded breakdown was refused on cost grounds (s.12 FOIA) -- this response is volume only, not outcomes. Included for context because it documents ESCC's recurring difficulty answering this exact question (see also the 2025 Jo Nye request above, also only partially successful), and because the EHC plan/Statement volume figures are usable as denominators.
Re-use terms stated by the council: Response includes standard ESCC copyright/reuse notice: information may be reproduced under the 'fair dealing' provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (S.29 and S.30) for non-commercial research, private study, criticism, review and news reporting.