Lewisham
Data availableLondon
102
appeals registered, 2024 (official DfE figure)
114
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.
- SENDIAS Lewisham — 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 · 0203 319 2163.
- 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 — 83 (72.2%)
Contested, council lost — 21 (18.3%)
Contested, council won — 6 (5.2%)
Partially split — 5 (4.3%)
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 (114 appeals) — see how estimates work.
Freedom of Information responses
Awaiting classification
Response dated 22 January 2025, ref 28324706. For Q3-5 (appeals registered by year/type, cases defended, % won/lost) the council gave no borough-specific figures at all, answering instead: 'For questions 3 - 5, this data is publicly available via the DfE's SEN 2 census. See links and examples below' followed by links to gov.uk tribunal statistics and the DfE Explore Education Statistics EHC plans page -- no Lewisham-specific counts appear anywhere in the letter. Q6 (internal legal hours): 'We have two dedicated SEN Tribunal and Compliance Officers who deal with all appeals and mediations' (no hours figure given). Q7 (external legal support 2019-2024): 'Yes, on a very few occasions. The total cost for external legal support between 2019 and 2024 has been £12,550.'
Caveat: This response does NOT contain Lewisham's actual appeal counts, type breakdown, or win/loss outcomes -- despite the request specifically asking for them, the council redirected to the public DfE SEN2 census rather than supplying its own figures. Only the external-legal-cost total and confirmation of dedicated tribunal staffing are genuine council-supplied tribunal-specific data points in this document.
Re-use terms stated by the council: "You are free to use the information provided for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, requires the permission of the copyright holder. You may apply for permission to re-use this information by submitting a request to foi@lewisham.gov.uk"