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Sheffield City Council
Data availableYorkshire and the Humber
286
appeals registered, 2024 (official DfE figure)
289
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
Resolved before hearing — 210 (72.7%)
Contested, council lost — 53 (18.3%)
Contested, council won — 14 (4.8%)
Partially split — 12 (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 (289 appeals) — see how estimates work.
Freedom of Information responses
Successful
SEND appeals received by year: "2019: 126. 2020: 116. 2021: 86. 2022: 120. 2023: 288. 2024: 135." "Of these appeal cases decided by tribunal, how many were in favour of the council?" - Appeal cases [decided by tribunal] / In favour of the Council: "2019: 54 / 4. 2020: 43 / 3. 2021: 17 / 2. 2022: 34 / 3. 2023: 130 / 5. 2024: 144 / 1." SEND provision spend (Section 251 High Needs Net Expenditure) totalled £430,496,467 across the whole period (2018/19 partial-year £12,975,821 rising to 2023/24 £89,194,787). Legal team spend on SEND appeals rose from £120,945.80 (2018/19) to £224,010.18 (2023/24), plus £98,825.70 for partial 2024/25.
Re-use terms stated by the council: "The information provided in this response is available for re-use under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0. The terms of the OGL can be found here. When re-using the information, Sheffield City Council requires you to include the following attribution statement: ‘Contains public sector information obtained from Sheffield City Council and licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.’"
Successful
"Year / Appeals Received in the SEN Team / Council successfully upholding the Local Authority's decision: 2024: 287 / 11. 2025: 278 / 4. 2026 [to 30 June]: 236 / [figure not captured in extract]." Legal costs table: In-house lawyers 2024 £222,003.50, 2025 £139,703.50, 2026(partial) £63,146.40; Agency lawyers 2024 £305,577.52, 2025 £238,917.62, 2026 £0.00; a third provider "Spikey Profile Ltd" 2024 £0, 2025 £36,972.00, 2026 £188,628.00; combined total £1,195,948.54 across the period. "No barrister fees have been incurred... No advocates fees have been incurred."
Caveat: This dataset uses different question wording ("Appeals Received in the SEN Team" and "successfully upholding the Local Authority's decision") from the LBC REQUEST dataset above and the two figures do NOT reconcile for the overlapping year 2024 (this request: 287 appeals / 11 upheld for the council vs. the LBC REQUEST response: 135 appeals / 1 in favour of council for 2024) - most likely due to different date cut-offs (full calendar year here vs. partial year to 1 October in the other request) and possibly different internal team/definition scope. Both datasets are transcribed exactly as reported, without attempting reconciliation.
Re-use terms stated by the council: Same Open Government Licence v3.0 statement and attribution requirement as the LBC REQUEST response above, repeated in full in this response.