SEND & EHCP Tribunal Index
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North Somerset Council

Data available

South West

94
appeals registered, 2024 (official DfE figure)
128
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.

Estimated outcome breakdown

Estimated, not reported
73.2%
18.1%
Resolved before hearing — 93 (73.2%) Contested, council lost — 23 (18.1%) Contested, council won — 6 (4.7%) Partially split — 5 (3.9%)

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 (128 appeals) — see how estimates work.

By decision type

By decision type — 2019
Category (council's own wording)AppealsOverturned
Refusal to assess15
Refusal to issue
Sections I
Sections BFI
By decision type — 2021
Category (council's own wording)AppealsOverturned
Refusal to assess
Refusal to issue6
Sections I5
Sections BFI
By decision type — 2022
Category (council's own wording)AppealsOverturned
Refusal to assess10
Refusal to issue8
Sections I6
Sections BFI
By decision type — 2023
Category (council's own wording)AppealsOverturned
Refusal to assess35
Refusal to issue
Sections I14
Sections BFI22

Freedom of Information responses

Awaiting classification
Requested by [account subsequently suspended/name removed by WhatDoTheyKnow; addressed by the council as 'Ms Jones'] on 2024-01-14 · answered 2024-01-31 · covers 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
Covering letter (31 Jan 2024, ref 4892740) states on legal costs: 'Legal help is provided by Browne Jacobson. To date, North Somerset Council have paid invoices totalling £123,019 to Browne Jacobson in the current financial year and are currently forecasting total costs of £149,271 to the end of the financial year.' The attached spreadsheet ('Response FOI 4892740.xlsx') gives appeals registered against the LA by type and year, 2019-2023 (cell values under 5 are redacted as '<5' under s40(2) FOIA): Refusal to assess -- 2019:15, 2020:<5, 2021:<5, 2022:10, 2023:35. Refusal to issue -- 2019:<5, 2020:<5, 2021:6, 2022:8, 2023:<5. Sections I -- 2019:<5, 2020:<5, 2021:5, 2022:6, 2023:14. Sections BFI -- 2019:<5, 2020:<5, 2021:<5, 2022:<5, 2023:22.
Caveat: The original request asked for a 5-way breakdown including a 'Sections B and F' category, but the released spreadsheet only has 4 categories (Refusal to assess, Refusal to issue, Sections I, Sections BFI) -- 'Sections B and F' does not appear anywhere in the table, seemingly omitted rather than answered. The request also asked for the breakdown 'in terms of outcomes' (won/lost) as well as by year, but the spreadsheet only gives counts of appeals registered by type/year -- no outcome/win-lose dimension is actually provided anywhere in either attachment. Many individual cell values are redacted as '<5', so exact small counts are unavailable.
Requested by Andrew Hall on 2026-04-07 · answered 2026-05-18 · covers 2023, 2024, 2025
UNVERIFIED - North Somerset initially rejected the request under s12 ('some exceeds appropriate limit'); Andrew Hall resubmitted a narrowed version on 21 April 2026 (dropping Question 4) which included Question 7 (renumbered) = SEND Tribunal appeals and concessions 2023-2025. Two PDF attachments were issued ('Response some exceeds appropriate limit.pdf', 431K, and 'Response all information to be supplied.pdf', 423K); automated extraction returned no readable content. On 19 June 2026 the council separately emailed to say annual-review data it had offered might have data-quality issues and asked whether the requester still wanted it — this sub-thread appears unresolved as of the last correspondence visible.
Caveat: Attachment confirmed to exist but not machine-readable: Both PDFs downloaded and read in full (5 pages + 4 pages). Confirmed no tribunal appeal/concession figures for North Somerset are present in either document -- this specific data point genuinely was not provided in this thread. (Real North Somerset tribunal figures for 2019-2023 were separately obtained from the send_tribunal_information request above.). Needs manual retrieval, not necessarily a fresh FOI.