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Herefordshire Council
Data availableWest Midlands
30
appeals registered, 2024 (official DfE figure)
46
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.
Thinking about appealing, or partway through it? These are free, independent sources of advice — not run by this site, and not run by any council.
- Herefordshire and Worcestershire SENDIASS — this council's own free SEND information, advice and support service. Every council is legally required to fund one, at arm's length from itself · 01432 260 955.
- IPSEA — Free, independent legal advice on SEN law — including EHC plans and tribunal appeals.
- SOS!SEN — Free helpline and 1:1 advice specifically on preparing a SEND tribunal appeal.
- Coram Children's Legal Centre — Free education law advice line, including SEN appeals and EHC plan reviews.
- GOV.UK: appeal an EHC plan decision — The official government guide to the appeals process itself — who can appeal, mediation, costs.
Estimated outcome breakdown
Estimated, not reported
Resolved before hearing — 33 (73.3%)
Contested, council lost — 8 (17.8%)
Contested, council won — 2 (4.4%)
Partially split — 2 (4.4%)
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 (46 appeals) — see how estimates work.
By decision type
By decision type — 2025
| Category (council's own wording) | Appeals | Overturned |
|---|---|---|
| challenged via appeal to First-tier Tribunal (SEND) [Q2(b)] | 16 | — |
Freedom of Information responses
Response to 'National FOI Request — SEND Performance Comparative Study' (ref FOI2026/00841), questions 2 and 8 (other questions -- phase transfer deadlines, EP timeliness/provenance, complaints, LGSCO -- omitted as out of scope). Q2 Outcomes of challenges to refusal-to-assess decisions: (a) challenged via statutory mediation -- 'for 2025: Number of request mediation = 8'; 2023-2024 not given directly, Council states this is exempt under s21 as 'reasonably accessible' via the DfE's published Explore Education Statistics dataset (instructing the requester to filter columns AA/AB of that dataset's 'Requests' file for Herefordshire). (b) challenged via appeal to First-tier Tribunal (SEND) -- '2025 - Number of request Tribunals = 16'; 2023-2024 again refused under s21 pointing to the same DfE dataset. (c) of (a)+(b), number where the Council subsequently changed position and agreed to assess: 2025-19, 2024-18, 2023-2. (d) average time: 'This information is not available.' Q8 SEND Tribunal appeals and concessions (appeals registered, and appeals conceded before final hearing): NO local figures given for any of 2023, 2024, or 2025 -- entirely refused under s21, redirecting to the same DfE published dataset ('As such we consider this information to be exempt under Section 21... Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act').
Caveat: The core 'SEND Tribunal appeals and concessions' question (Q8) -- the single most directly relevant question to this project -- received no actual local figures in this document at all; the council relied entirely on a s21 (reasonably-accessible-elsewhere) refusal and pointed to the national DfE dataset instead. Only Q2 (refusal-to-assess-specific challenges, a narrower subset of all appeal types) has genuine locally-sourced numbers, and even those are given for 2025 only for parts (a) and (b) -- 2023/2024 for those two sub-questions were also refused under s21.
Re-use terms stated by the council: Council's covering email states: 'For any queries about re-use of our response please see re-use of council data' (linking to a council web page on re-use terms); the terms themselves were not captured in this pass.