I heard about a bizarre case recently. Situation was that child with a statement had originally been placed at a local mainstream school which was around 4 miles away but seemed a better bet than the local village school. The placement was never that great and three years later was failing, so the parents looked around and identified a local independent school - not a special school as such but one that offered small classes and a lot of experience of dealing with children with SEN. LA refused, parents appealed to SENDIST, LA said that the current school was fine, could meet needs, and was cheaper. However, if you took into account transport costs to the current school (to which the child would be entitled given the distance) then actually the independent one was cheaper. Ah, said the LA, but you can't take those into account because it's not the nearest suitable school and the child is only placed there because of parental preference. Parents pointed out that you can't possibly say it's parental preference when they were appealing against it, it's utterly irrelevant that it was parental preference three years ago.
At the beginning of the tribunal hearing, the judge said to the parents' representative that he couldn't understand why the appeal was still going, surely they must win on the basis their school was cheaper. Precisely said the rep, but the LA say they don't have to pay transport. The judge said "Well, they're wrong, aren't they?"
Ultimately the tribunal found for the parents not just on costs but also on the basis that the maintained school couldn't meet the child's needs anyway. Parents confidently applied for costs, but were refused. Which is just bizarre. You would think that if the tribunal judge is effectively telling everyone he doesn't know why the LA is opposing the appeal, that should be a case iron case for awarding costs. So far as I can see, the decision is gibberish, but it's a depressing precedent.