New data reveals West Northants Council has spent £1.1 MILLION fighting parents of special needs children in court

A Freedom of Information request by this newspaper has revealed that the council has been involved in 158 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) tribunal cases during the 2023/2024 financial year, with the number already rising to 170 for 2024/2025 to date. A previous FOI revealed WNC was involved in 54 tribunals with SEND parents in 2021/2022.

Legal costs for WNC defending these tribunals have been costly. The council spent £275,000 in 2021/2022, £305,000 in the 2022/2023 financial year, and £294,000 in 2023/2024. So far in 2024/2025, £230,000 has been spent. When broken down per case, the average cost for 2023/2024 was £1,859, which has decreased to £1,351 for the current year.

So since 2021, when WNC was formed, the council has been involved in a total of 540 SEND tribunal cases, with legal costs amounting to £1.1 million.

The West Northants SEND Action Group, a large group of parents of SEND children who campaign against the council, has slammed WNC. They said: “Yet again these figures show a significant increase in the number of tribunal cases WNC is fighting due to their failures to provide for the needs of children and young people with SEND. This does not reflect the improvement that WNC claims is happening.

"The average spend per case has decreased, which WNC will probably hail as an improvement, but that does not reflect any improvement, but rather what is reported by families: a significant lack of engagement from the local authority (LA) in these cases. WNC is forcing yet more parents to tribunal - and it often really is forced, with situations such as a parent having to go to tribunal to secure any education at all for a child, with the LA offering nothing – and then not even presenting a case.

"Parents report to us that WNC often hasn’t been meeting deadlines set by the judge and sometimes WNC will do this repeatedly until the LA is barred from process. This indicates that there is no good reason for WNC to force the family through an incredibly stressful tribunal, and that they are misusing the stretched tribunal system, for their own ends.

"WNC really must do better for children and young people with SEND because the extensive failings are having a profoundly negative impact on these children’s outcomes and these families’ whole lives.”

The parents highlighted three main reasons why they take WNC to tribunal:

• Appealing WNC’s refusal to carry out an Education, Health, and Care (EHCP) needs assessment.

• Appealing WNC’s refusal to issue an EHCP, which occurs when the council conducts an assessment but determines the child does not qualify for a plan.

• Appealing the contents of an EHCP or the named school in the plan, usually because parents believe the plan or school does not meet their child’s needs.

In response, a spokesperson from WNC said: “While we do not discuss individual cases, we acknowledge the concerns from parents or carers leading to tribunals. We remain committed to making the necessary improvements and working collaboratively with parents, carers, and families to address their concerns and ensure that provision is able to meet the needs. We have invested into recruiting additional colleagues, including more caseworkers and a dedicated head of SEND, to expand service capacity. We continue to engage with families as part of our SEND improvement journey to ensure that their views help to shape our services to meet the needs of our communities.”