Im hoping IE will pop along, but know shes bogged down at the mo.
I have asked the FOI officer to find out info re SLT. The question was what training did the service give to xxx school. I didnt want specific names but just the course and dates, now bear in mind DS school claim that all the TAs are SLT trained, and was done so by the local service, you'd have thought they would know when they trained the TAs.
The response was: " xxx provide training to enable schools to support children with speech, language and communication needs. Schools in the tri-borough area may send staff to attend the sessions that we run,
What we don’t have is attendance lists of school staff who have attended, and as such that question would need to be directed to the school in question"
Yeah right...so your telling me, folk can just turn up with no clue whatsoever about who there they are at least from...I know LAs can be rubbish, but they are not so rubbish to now know whom will be attending their courses and if they are professionals or some random parent or weirdo just wanting to turn up for a bit of warmth out of the cold and a cuppa, so how exactly does one account for this course for auditing purposes if you have no names or any information of any sort for using taxpayers money to run such a course.
Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on special needs.
SN children
here we go..FOI issue
hoxtonbabe · 10/09/2013 19:23
Did you put the FOI request to the NHS, or to your LA? If it's the latter, and if the school in question is maintained, then it's a fob-off. They simply can't be arsed to retrieve information that is held by another part of the LA, and aren't fulfilling their obligation to see that your request is met by this other part of the bureaucracy.
I'm in a similar position, having been told by an LA that it has no idea whether staff are being cut at one of the specialist units it funds (ground truth - it knows full fucking well that they are, and it's happening at their behest according to local professional sources). They've told me to ask the (LA maintained and funded) school for data on unit funding and staffing.
I've asked for an internal review, on the grounds that the school concerned is an LA funded organisation, and that because the unit only takes statemented pupils, the LA has a legal obligation to ensure that the unit pupil's SEN are being met - and they can't fulfil this obligation unless they know staff numbers.
What timescale are you working to? There are 2 options here:
1 - Play them at their arsehole game. Put an FoI request directly to the school(s). It is unlikely that the school doesn't have this information - and if it doesn't, then it's evidence one way or another of the school's failure, either procedural or CPD. This will take 4 weeks.
2 - Face them down by requesting an internal review. This will take 40 days, be carried out by another part of the LA (the fecking Marketing department at my council), and most likely end with the original LA response upheld. If you're in a hurry, or have no appetite to escalate further to the ICO, this route probably isn't a goer.
Best of luck! 
It's all a game isn't it? I take it you have the school records already? If not I would request the details from them. The problem is,how do you know whether it's true or not if you just have their word for it?
I have asked for details of staff training but was simply told that 'all relevant staff had training on x disability'. What does training 'on' x mean exactly? 
How's the trib stuff going btw Hoxton ?
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