Home › South West › Plymouth City Council
Plymouth City Council
Data availableSouth West
252
appeals registered, 2024 (official DfE figure)
221
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.
- Plymouth Information Advice and Support for SEND (PIAS) — 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 · Telephone: 01752 258933, Freephone: 0800 9531131.
- 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 — 160 (72.7%)
Contested, council lost — 40 (18.2%)
Contested, council won — 11 (5%)
Partially split — 9 (4.1%)
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 (221 appeals) — see how estimates work.
By decision type
By decision type — 2023-2025
| Category (council's own wording) | Appeals | Overturned |
|---|---|---|
| challenged via appeal to First-tier Tribunal | 300 | — |
Freedom of Information responses
Awaiting classification
Response headed 'Date: 21 May 2025' [likely should read 2026 -- see caveats], ref 824367101. Q2 outcomes of refusal-to-assess challenges: (a) challenged via statutory mediation -- 2023: 67, 2024: 150, 2025: 68. (b) challenged via appeal to First-tier Tribunal -- 2023: 45, 2024: 171, 2025: 84. (c) of those challenges, number where council changed position/agreed to assess: 'Every case except 2 in 2025.' (d) average time to proceed after successful challenge: 'We do not hold this information.' Q8 SEND Tribunal appeals and concessions: (a) total appeals registered against the council at First-tier Tribunal, given month-by-month with annual totals -- 2023: 143; 2024: 253; 2025: 218. (b) conceded/resolved prior to hearing: 'Sometimes we have resolved an appeal by reaching an alternative agreement with parents that is accepted and therefore this would not qualify as a "concession", but we do not hold this specific data in order to differentiate, without checking each and every appeal.' For 2023 specifically this sub-question was refused under s12 (estimated 12 hours of staff time to manually review 143 appeals). Instead, the council separately volunteered: '2024 - 28 appeals were heard by the Tribunal' and '2025 - 45 appeals were heard by the Tribunal' (i.e. proceeded to a contested hearing, as distinct from the total number registered).
Caveat: The letter is headed '21 May 2025' but its own body text says it is 'writing further to the previous correspondence dated 7th April 2026' -- the 2025 date appears to be a typo by the council for 2026 (consistent with a full 12 months of 2025 monthly appeal data being reported, which would be impossible to have complete as of May 2025). Transcribed as printed rather than silently corrected. The council does not explicitly state a 'conceded before hearing' count as such -- the 'appeals heard by the Tribunal' figures for 2024 (28 of 253) and 2025 (45 of 218) are a related but separately-labelled data point, not framed by the council itself as concessions, so should not be read as a direct answer to part (b).
Re-use terms stated by the council: "Please note that the information supplied can be re-used in accordance with the Open Government Licence. For further details please see: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open%2Dgovernment%2Dlicence/."