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Staffordshire County Council
Data availableWest Midlands
435
appeals registered, 2024 (official DfE figure)
437
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.
- Staffordshire SEND Family Partnership — 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 · 01785 356921 (Monday to Thursday 9am - 5pm, Fridays 9am to 4.30pm).
- 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.
Structured outcome breakdown
Structured breakdown — 2021/22
real, from FOI response
Resolved before hearing — 99 (67.3%)
Contested, council lost — 43 (29.3%)
Contested, council won — 5 (3.4%)
Full outcome-type breakdown by financial year (Apr-Mar). resolved_before_hearing = consent order issued (58) + conceded by the local authority (26) + appeal withdrawn by parents (15) = 99. contested_and_council_lost = 'Appeal upheld in favour of parents / allowed in part' (43) -- council's own column COMBINES a clean loss with a partial split, so partially_split is left null here rather than double-counted. contested_and_council_won = 'Appeal dismissed/struck out' (5). A further 'Not recorded/appeal still in progress' bucket (9) is not mapped to any of the 5 fields (pending/unknown status). All figures reconcile exactly against the council's own stated total: 99+43+5+9=156=156.
Freedom of Information responses
Successful
'How many tribunals have been brought by parents for the years: 2019 - 77, 2020 - 140, 2021 - 146, 2022 - 65. How many tribunals were rescinded by Staffordshire LA for years [council note: below are number of tribunals conceded by the local authority; does not include appeals subsequently withdrawn by parents or consent orders]: 2019 - 27, 2020 - 15, 2021 - 23, 2022 - 5. How many tribunals were found in favour of parents for the years [council note: below are numbers of appeals either upheld or allowed in part]: 2019 - 20, 2020 - 51, 2021 - 37, 2022 - 3.' Also supplied for context: EHCNA requests made by schools (2019: 724, 2020: 569, 2021: 627, 2022: 289) and by parents (2019: 524, 2020: 384, 2021: 430, 2022: 181); EHCNA requests from schools rejected (2019: 181, 2020: 24, 2021: 182, 2022: 48).
Caveat: 'Conceded'/'rescinded' figures explicitly exclude appeals withdrawn by parents and consent orders, so on their own they understate the total rate of pre-hearing LA concessions in the broader sense used elsewhere (e.g. compare against Andrew Hall's later national-batch definition, which does include withdrawals following an LA concession). 2022 figures are necessarily a partial year, since the response is dated May 2022.
Awaiting classification
'The number of appeals registered each year were (financial years, April-March): 2021/22 - 156, 2022/23 - 278, 2023/24 - 328, 2024/25 - 398.' Outcome breakdown table (columns 2021/22 / 2022/23 / 2023/24 / 2024/25 / Total): Consent order issued 58 / 88 / 167 / 120 / 433; Appeal upheld in favour of parents / allowed in part 43 / 138 / 104 / 56 / 341; Conceded by the local authority 26 / 18 / 26 / 25 / 95; Appeal withdrawn by parents 15 / 15 / 13 / 16 / 59; Appeal dismissed/struck out 5 / 4 / 5 / 3 / 17; Not recorded/appeal still in progress 9 / 15 / 13 / 178 / 215; Total 156 / 278 / 328 / 398 / 1,160. Council also stated: 'We are unable to provide the legal costs associated with SEND tribunals.'
Caveat: The richest single dataset found for the whole region: a full outcome-type breakdown (not just won/lost) by financial year across four consecutive years, cross-checked against a stated total of 1,160 appeals. The very high 'not recorded/in progress' figure for 2024/25 (178 of 398, i.e. 45%) reflects that many 2024/25 appeals had not yet reached a recorded outcome at the time of the April 2025 response — treat 2024/25 outcome proportions as provisional relative to the earlier, more complete years. Requester reported non-receipt on 18 Apr 2025 and the council re-sent the identical content as an attachment on 22 Apr 2025; WhatDoTheyKnow has not yet classified the thread's outcome status. A separate, generically-titled 'SEND Information Request' thread by the same requester (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/send_information_request) covers SEND mediation volumes only (requests raised/fulfilled-within-30-days/refused) — no tribunal outcome data — and is intentionally not logged as a separate entry here since it falls outside this catalogue's scope.