SEND Tribunal Bundle Requirements (Practice Direction No 1 of 2025)
Start with the rule parents are rarely told: in SEND and disability discrimination cases the local authority or responsible body prepares the bundle, not you. Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 applies to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025 and sets hard page caps by appeal type, a specific filename format, and a rejection power — a non-compliant bundle may be rejected unless a note explaining why is attached.
Governing document
Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases
Senior President of Tribunals / Chamber President (HESC) · 22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025
Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025)
Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025)
Checked against the published source on 15 August 2026.
The numbers, in one place
| Page limit | 100 pages (core bundle) The core bundle is capped at 100 pages. Part Two (the EHC plan and its appendices) has its own 150-page limit, and further limits apply by appeal type: refusal to assess 75, refusal to issue 100, ceasing to maintain 75, sections B and/or F 100, section I 75. Working documents are capped at 25 pages, expert reports at 15 (with a summary of no more than 2), witness statements at 10. |
| Pagination | Arabic, continuous from page 1 Sequential from page 1 throughout. Sections must NOT be individually paginated (para 37) — the same rule as the Employment Tribunal, the opposite of the family Bates system. |
| Font | 12 point minimum, Arial |
| Filename must contain | appeal number, child or young person's name, the words FINAL BUNDLE, hearing date Model given in the rules: EH123.23.00123 Jane Smith FINAL BUNDLE 21.1.2024 |
| Who prepares it | the local authority or responsible body |
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Every rule, in the source's own words
Quotations below are verbatim. Where a rule is best practice carried from another regime rather than a requirement of the governing document, it says so in the row.
| Requirement | What the rule actually says | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Produced electronically in PDF must |
“Bundles must be produced electronically by the LA or RB in PDF format.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 26 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| The LA or responsible body prepares it check yourself |
“In all SEND or DD cases, it will be for the Local Authority ('LA') or Responsible Body ('RB') to prepare a Tribunal Bundle comprising the written evidence to be considered.” If you are a parent and you have been asked to build the bundle, this is the paragraph to point at. |
PD No 1 of 2025 para 20 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Filename format must |
“The file name of the electronic bundle must include the appeal number and the child or young person's name and state that it is the final bundle with date of the hearing (e.g. EH123.23.00123 Jane Smith FINAL BUNDLE 21.1.2024).” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 27 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Core bundle 100 pages must |
“Subject to any application, the core bundle shall be limited to 100 pages.” Part Two (the EHC plan and appendices) is limited to 150 pages and is counted separately from the core bundle. |
PD No 1 of 2025, Annex — para 1 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| OCR where the character of the documents permits must |
“All bundles must, where the character of the documents permits, be the subject of OCR (optical character recognition). … Where an individual document is not susceptible to the process, they do not have to be subject to OCR (e.g. handwritten notes).” The handwritten-notes carve-out is express. An image-only page is not automatically a breach here. |
PD No 1 of 2025 para 28 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Default view 100% must |
“The default view for all pages must be 100%.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 29 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| 12-point font, preferably Arial must |
“All documents must be prepared using 12-point font, preferably in Arial.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 30 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Arial preferred should |
“preferably in Arial” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 30 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Correctly orientated on screen must |
“All documents must be orientated correctly so they can be read on screen without having to be rotated.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 31 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Bookmarks with description, date and author must |
“All significant documents and all sections in the bundle must be bookmarked for ease of navigation, with an appropriate description, including date and author. Ideally there should be hyperlinks inserted into the index.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 33 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Hyperlinks in the index — "ideally" should |
“Ideally there should be hyperlinks inserted into the index.” "Ideally", not "must". We report a missing hyperlinked index here rather than failing it. |
PD No 1 of 2025 para 33 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Sequential pagination, sections not individually paginated must |
“All pages in the bundle must be paginated sequentially (starting with page 1 and numbered consecutively throughout). Sections must not be individually paginated.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 37 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Page labels follow the sequence should |
“starting with page 1 and numbered consecutively throughout” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 37 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Not password protected must |
“Tribunal Bundles must not be password protected.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 52 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| No document included more than once must |
“The LA or RB must ensure that no document is included more than once.” | PD No 1 of 2025 para 23 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
| Rejection power check yourself |
“Any bundle that fails to comply with this Practice Direction may be rejected by HMCTS, a Judge or a Legal Officer in advance of the hearing UNLESS there is an accompanying note explaining why non-compliance is necessary.” The explanatory note is the safety valve. If you cannot comply, say so in writing and say why. |
PD No 1 of 2025 para 14 Practice Direction No 1 of 2025 — First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber): bundles in SEND and Disability Discrimination cases (22 April 2025, applying to final hearings listed after 15 July 2025) |
Where this court differs from the others
This is the part that causes wasted work: a bundle built correctly for one court can breach the rules of another. Applying the wrong court's rulebook is the most common way a compliant bundle gets called non-compliant.
Index links
| Family (PD27A) | Index entries must be "added to" the indexed document. Hyperlinking is best practice carried from other regimes, not an express PD27A requirement. |
| Administrative Court, King's Bench (10.21) | Hyperlinked index is mandatory. |
| Court of Appeal | Hyperlinks OR bookmarks, "as appropriate". |
| Chancery, Commercial | Hyperlinked "if possible". |
| SEND Tribunal | Hyperlinks "ideally". |
| Employment Tribunal | Index hyperlinked at the front, OR supplied as a separate PDF. |
Pagination
| Financial remedy | Arabic, continuous, and the computer numbering must match the PDF page labels. |
| Family, not financial remedy | Bates numbering: A1, A2 … B1, B2 … by section. |
| Employment Tribunal, SEND Tribunal | Sequential Arabic from 1. Sections must NOT be separately numbered. |
| Chancery, Commercial | Where a bundle is split across files, pagination begins afresh in each file. |
| Administrative Court, King's Bench | First page of the PDF is page 1, index pages included. |
Bookmark density
| Everywhere except the Employment Tribunal | All significant documents and all sections. |
| Employment Tribunal | Significant documents only — "Do not bookmark every single document". |
Resolution
| Nearly all of the regimes on this page | Not greater than 300 dpi — a ceiling only. |
| Administrative Court, King's Bench (10.21) | About 200 to 300 dpi — a floor as well as a ceiling. |
Page and size caps
| Family, financial remedy | 350 pages, court permission to exceed. In financial remedy, position statements and composite documents do not count towards it. |
| Court of Appeal | 350 pages on the supplementary bundle; 50MB split threshold. |
| Administrative Court, criminal | 20mb, with a core bundle above it. Core bundle required over 400 pages (PD 54A 16). |
| SEND Tribunal | Core bundle 100 pages; EHC plan part 150; further caps by appeal type. |
| Chancery, Commercial, King's Bench | No page cap. |
What actually happened when bundles went wrong
Re L (A Child) [2015] EWFC 15 — Judicial naming of the default
Sir James Munby P, then President of the Family Division, on repeated non-compliance with the bundles practice direction. The court's words: “Fifteen years of default are enough.”
Being straight about this: No reported case imposes wasted costs solely for bundle defects. The only money outcome we can point to is Y v X (Costs) [2026] EWFC 35 (B), where bundle preparation fees were disallowed. None of these outcomes is a fine. Courts do not fine parties for bundle format. Every case above pre-dates the Practice Direction 27A that came into force on 2 March 2026. As at 15 August 2026 there is no reported judgment under the new PD27A. The underlying duties are materially similar, but nobody can yet cite a decision on the new wording.
What we cannot tell you
- No Civil Procedure Rule anywhere mandates bookmarks, OCR or hyperlinks in an electronic civil bundle. Those requirements come from judicial guidance and court guides, which a judge may vary in your case.
- The enacted PD27A says index entries must be "added to" the indexed document, not "hyperlinked to". We treat hyperlinking as best practice for family bundles and label it as such. Published commentary usually says "hyperlinked" because it is quoting the 2021 guidance, which no longer applies to family proceedings.
- PD27A 4.8 promises further HMCTS guidance on bundles. As at 15 August 2026 it has not been published.
- The 50MB figure in the Court of Appeal and King's Bench guides descends from the revoked PD 51O. Treat it as guide-level practice, not law. CPR PD 5C sets a 100MB electronic filing cap and carves bundles out of the pilot.
- Employment Tribunal Presidential Guidance is something a tribunal must have regard to. It does not bind in the way a practice direction does.
- This tool checks the format of a PDF. It cannot tell you whether a document belongs in the bundle, whether a bookmark description is good enough, or whether your case is ready. Those are judgement calls and we report them as such.
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Other courts
FamilyFPR Practice Direction 27AFinancial remedyFPR Practice Direction 27AAdministrative CourtAdministrative CourtCourt of AppealCourt of Appeal (Civil Division) Guide 2025Chancery / CommercialChancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts)King's BenchThe King's Bench Guide 2025Employment TribunalPresidential GuidanceCriminalCriminal Practice Directions 2023, Part 12General civilGeneral guidance on electronic court bundles
This is a format check against published court rules. It is not legal advice, it does not tell you whether your case is ready, and no outcome is guaranteed. The rules are subject to any direction a judge gives in your own case. Rules and guides are updated by the courts without notice; this page records the position as at 15 August 2026 and links to every source so you can check it yourself.