Council sanctioned in dozens of SEND appeals

A mother who took a council to tribunal over her daughter's education needs has said a lack of engagement by the authority made the process "really stressful".

It comes as a Freedom of Information request reveals that Surrey County Council was formally sanctioned by the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) tribunal in 38 cases over a five month period.

On each occasion, the authority was given a barring notice, which is usually issued to a council as a last resort when it has failed to provide information to the tribunal on time.

Surrey County Council said the barring notices were issued during an "exceptionally high period of activity" and that it had taken "immediate action".

Jenny Tupper, who lives near Horley, took Surrey County Council to tribunal on behalf of one of her daughters to update her education, health and care plan (EHCP).

She said the council initially engaged but then stopped responding to the process.

In February 2025 Surrey County Council was issued with a barring order by the First Tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) in Tupper's daughter's case.

The tribunal is responsible for handling appeals against local authority decisions regarding special educational needs.

Tupper said going to tribunal was "an incredibly stressful and worrying time".

"You're hoping to minimise any adversity and get the best outcome for your child. There's a lot of work that you, as a parent, put into that," she said.

"I had to create a working document for the hearing itself which takes a lot of time and effort and that's a job that Surrey County Council should have done."

The tribunal went ahead in August 2025 without the council being able to participate in the hearing.

Tupper said it took a further five months to receive an updated EHCP for her daughter and she still felt the document did not reflect what the tribunal had ordered.

The experience left her feeling as if her children "who are probably some of the most vulnerable in our society, don't matter," she said.

Surrey County Council does not routinely record the number of barring orders it receives but carried out a "deep-dive report" on cases between February and June 2025.

The internal report found the authority had been issued with 38 barring orders during that period.

In 34 cases, the council was later readmitted to the process but in the remaining four it remained fully barred.

The council said that, at the time, there had been around 725 live tribunals in progress, which it described as an "exceptionally high level of activity".

Laksmi Patel, who is a specialist education solicitor at legal firm Boyes Turner, said she had only seen one authority barred from an appeal in 15 years.

She said barring orders were "only really" made when there was "no reasonable explanation" for missed deadlines or a council had "gone silent".

"To actually go ahead and bar an authority is still extremely rare but I'm seeing local authorities pushing it to the edge more and more," she added.

Surrey County Council's figures were revealed in a Freedom of Information request by Chris Coghlan, the Liberal Democrat MP for Dorking and Horley,

Coghlan accused the authority of "wrecking children's lives" adding that public authorities "must be accountable like everyone else".

Helyn Clack, the council's cabinet member for children, families and lifelong learning said "immediate action" had been taken in response to the report.

This had included "recruiting additional staff, restructuring the tribunals team, and doubling the size of the mediation and dispute resolution service", she said.

She said the authority was committed to "transparency, early dispute resolution, and continuous improvement" and would continue working with families, schools, and partners "to deliver the highest standard of SEND support".

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