Winning at 98.7%: The Devastating Reality Behind SEND Tribunal Success Rate

98.7% success! Something worth celebrating. Or is it?

Perhaps not when you consider this is the success rate for SEND Tribunal appeals in 2023-24. So not a statistic to be celebrated. In fact, it's a statistic that needs interrogation.

Why? Because this statistic represents thousands of families being forced to fight for their child or young person's basic rights, at enormous personal cost.

I'm currently living this reality, challenging our local authority's decision to withdraw Chloe's transport from home to college. Offering her instead a personal transport budget that is wholly inadequate.

Instead of focusing every available minute on building my startup (to secure her future), I'm spending countless hours:

• Researching legislation (Section 508F, Care Act, Equality Act)
• Writing appeals
• Preparing evidence
• Chasing documentation
• Fighting for basic transparency

Fighting the system; a system that seems designed to exhaust parents into giving up.

Consider this: Special Needs Jungle evaluated the costs and estimate that in aggregate, local authorities were allocated ￡153 million of resources in 2023-24,?to defend appeals against them ... with a 1.3% success rate!

That's ￡153 million fighting against families instead of supporting them.

My experience mirrors what the data shows - families facing a public body with vastly greater resources, while managing:

• Complex care needs
• Financial pressures
• Business responsibilities
• Emotional toll
• Administrative burden

While I'm fortunate to have the skills to challenge decisions, many families can't. They simply give up - not because they don't have a case, not because they don't care, but because they simply have no capacity left to fight.

The human cost? Parents forced to leave jobs they love, families draining savings on taxi fares they can't afford, siblings missing school because parents can't be in two places at once. The ripple effect touching every aspect of family life - careers derailed, relationships strained, mental health impacted.

All because exhausted parents are forced to become amateur legal experts instead of focusing on what matters most - supporting their children and maintaining family stability.

￡153 million spent defending the indefensible in one year. Each pound represents a family like mine, fighting a system that should be supporting them.

Ask yourself: If a private company spent ￡153 million on legal battles they lost 98.7% of the time, how long would the board remain in place? How long would shareholders tolerate such waste?

Yet in local government, this continues year after year. Your council tax. Your public resources. Spent fighting families already stretched to breaking point, instead of supporting those who need it most.

This isn't just another social media post about broken systems. This is happening in your local authority, paid for with your money, affecting families in your community. Right now.

If you're a business leader, policy maker, or local councillor - you have the power to challenge this. Ask your local authority how much they're spending on SEND tribunals. Question their success rates. Demand better use of public funds.

If you're a parent going through this - you're not alone. Connect with SEND support networks. Share your story. The system relies on our silence and exhaustion.

This isn't about winning tribunals. It's about changing a system that forces families to fight for basic rights while wasting millions that could transform our young people's lives.

Will you help break this cycle?

#SEND #Education #PublicPolicy