Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) Tribunal Expenditure
Case reference FOI2026/00331
Received 7 February 2026
Published 4 March 2026
Request
Information requested For each financial year listed above, please provide total spend (rounded to the nearest £1,000 if necessary) for the following categories:
1. External legal costs Including but not limited to:
* Payments to solicitors, barristers, or legal firms relating to SEND tribunal cases
* Retainer arrangements for SEND/EHCP tribunal work (please state whether a retainer exists and the annual value)
* Disbursements and associated legal expenses
2. Internal staffing and teams Including:
* Costs associated with dedicated EHCP tribunal teams, SEND legal teams, or casework teams whose work includes tribunal preparation or attendance
* Where specific tribunal teams do not exist, please provide estimated staffing costs attributable to tribunal-related work (e.g. percentage of role function)
3. Complaints and dispute resolution linked to tribunals Including:
* Costs associated with formal complaints, dispute resolution, mediation, or pre-tribunal processes where these relate to EHCP appeals 4. Tribunal-related fees and charges Including:
* Any payments made by the Local Authority in connection with SEND tribunal proceedings, including payments to HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), expert witnesses commissioned for tribunal purposes, or other tribunal-related charges where such costs are borne by the Local Authority
Response
Information requested For each financial year listed above, please provide total spend (rounded to the nearest £1,000 if necessary) for the following categories:
1. External legal costs Including but not limited to:
* Payments to solicitors, barristers, or legal firms relating to SEND tribunal cases
* Retainer arrangements for SEND/EHCP tribunal work (please state whether a retainer exists and the annual value)
* Disbursements and associated legal expenses
2. Internal staffing and teams Including:
* Costs associated with dedicated EHCP tribunal teams, SEND legal teams, or casework teams whose work includes tribunal preparation or attendance
* Where specific tribunal teams do not exist, please provide estimated staffing costs attributable to tribunal-related work (e.g. percentage of role function)
3. Complaints and dispute resolution linked to tribunals Including:
* Costs associated with formal complaints, dispute resolution, mediation, or pre-tribunal processes where these relate to EHCP appeals 4. Tribunal-related fees and charges Including:
* Any payments made by the Local Authority in connection with SEND tribunal proceedings, including payments to HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), expert witnesses commissioned for tribunal purposes, or other tribunal-related charges where such costs are borne by the Local Authority
A: This information is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Our electronic reporting systems are unable to run a report for this information. The information is not recorded by type of work (e.g. SEND Tribunal), therefore to ascertain the data requested officers would need to manually check files for this information. An initial search has shown that 4,500 transactions for the timeframe requested, which would need to be checked to see if they relate to SEND tribunals, and it is estimated that it would take 10 minutes to check each transaction. Once the details had been identified this would need to be noted and once all files had been checked in this way, the information would need to be extracted and cross referenced against our case management system to collate the information requested.
This would at a conservative estimate take at least 750 hours to complete. Where the Limit is exceeded Public Authorities are not obliged to supply the information requested by virtue of S12 of the Act. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
The Service area would be able to provide the answers to part of Q1 (Payments to solicitors, barristers, or legal firms relating to SEND tribunal cases), for Q2 they could provide estimated staffing costs based on the number of tribunals in each year and mediation costs for Q3. Please let me know if this would be of use.
Documents
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