Rant - Bloody incompetent LA

[ReformedCharacter]

Education welfare have a dedicated EOTAS (Education other than at school) Inspector. He writes to me every September to request evidence of DS's education. I send the evidence to the address at the top of the letter, which is our local council offices.

To make absolutely sure that it doesn't get lost or damaged in the post, I take it to the council offices, queue at the reception desk and get a receipt for it.

3 weeks later I receive another letter from Mr EOTAS claiming not to have received the evidence. So, I write again and send via Royal Mail this time (just in case there is some reason that mail left at reception is being lost). I wait for 2 weeks and then phone MR EOTAS on the mobile no. he provides and leave a message. I receive a text message the next day from him saying that he is off work this week and will get back to me next week.

That was yesterday.

Today I received a telephone call from an Education Welfare Officer at the council asking us if DS is still HEd because she hasn't received anything from us in over a year. I tell her what we have sent over the past 6 weeks and she explains that Mr EOTAS works from home now so wouldn't have received anything sent to him via the council offices.

She suggested that it would be easier considering the recent mix-up for her to just pop round here and see us. I declined. She asked me how I intended to prove DS was actually receiving an education if I didn't send a new lot of evidence. I have told her to look for the 2 letters sent to the council, addressed to Mr EOTAS, but she told me, sarcastically, that the office is a very big place.

I will NOT be sending anything else to them until next September. They are surely taking the piss out of me.

Honestly, WTF is the matter with them. I am going to write a strongly worded letter of complaint once I've calmed down.

I've got a couple of questions which I'd like to ask because although I've read some threads in the HE area there's a lot I don't know:

Isn't it the case that you don't actually have to provide that evidence? I'm sure I've read here that local authorities don't have the right to ask for that.

Also, if the EOTAS person works from home, presumably that means he has personal information about other people's children in his house. Surely there must be some protocols in place to make sure that personal information is safe?

By my understanding, you've done more than is required and you're right in deciding to doing nothing more, other than to complain. Personal information about your child has allegedly gone missing in the council offices and that is what the EWO woman should be focussing on rather than hassling you.

The two letters going missing in the council offices is very strange and I'm a bit suspicious about that. Given the attitude of the EWO woman, I'd wonder if there was some office politics going on, and you've been caught in the middle of it.

"Isn't it the case that you don't actually have to provide that evidence? I'm sure I've read here that local authorities don't have the right to ask for that."

That's the stance I always take. However, the truth is that the answer isn't entirely clear in law.

Trouble is, the legislation regarding the LAs' duty is both contradictory and vague. Children Missing Education introduced a new duty for LAs to identify children who were not receiving suitable education, "so far as it is possible to do so." Unfortunately this contradicted previous legislation without specifically overriding it. And what exactly does "possible" mean anyway?

Here's a more detailed explanation: kellygreenandgold.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/children-missing-education-and-the-burden-of-proof/

The above is all about whether LAs ought to make enquiries. Nowhere is there any legal requirement for parents to respond to those enquiries. If they do not respond, and eventually are taken to court by the LA seeking to order the children to school, they can still provide evidence to the court at that stage and escape the School Attendance Order. A judge in such a case did once say that it would have been prudent for the parents to have responded to the LA's informal enquiries. But that isn't quite the same as saying the parents had a legal duty to do so.

That has probably confused you even more!!

Which LA do you come under ReformedCharacter?

I've sent you a PM Julie

"contradictory and vague" precisely!

Add in the fact that LAs (my LA at least) make up the rules as they go along and will attempt to put you off of HEing by telling you that it's virtually impossible to do.

On our 2nd day of HEing, after I'd de-registered DS and had a meeting with the Head at his old school to explain our reasons, we had an EWO turn up at our home. Her excuse was that she had a letter to give me and found it easier to drive to my flat than put it in with outgoing mail. AS IF!!! It was to check up on us of course.

In her words, we probably wouldn't want to continue with HEing once we found out "how much we had to do" to satisfy the LA that DS's education was efficient. She said that DS would have to join the cubs or something as it was compulsory that he spent some time during the week being looked after by non-related adults along with his peers. Loads and loads of bullshit statements like that.

My approach to dealing with them is to give them as much information as I can and that I am comfortable with. I don't do meetings and I avoid telephone calls (impossible right now because the post is so unreliable ). I actually give them a lot of information but they still try to claim that they need more. This year Mr EOTAS requested 'assessments and primary practical evidence' to help him evaluate DSs learning. I declined this request as I don't think it's his business to evaluate anybodys learning.

Saracen, good link!.

Thanks, Saracen (I think ). I'm slightly less confused, but I've had to read your post and that link several times in order to begin to understand the contradictions involved. But perhaps you could check my understanding so far:

S437 means that if a child comes to the attention of the LA because of a concern about that child's education, then the LA should investigate that individual child's case. But in S436, the LA can't fulfill that "must" requirement unless they investigate every child being Home Educated, which is the "guilty until proved innocent" aspect.

In ReformedCharacter's case, she's provided more than the legislation requires or even mentions, yet she's been hassled. I suspect that not only is there office politics going on, but also a tick-box mentality.

hugglymugly : "S437 means that if a child comes to the attention of the LA because of a concern about that child's education, then the LA should investigate that individual child's case. But in S436, the LA can't fulfill that "must" requirement unless they investigate every child being Home Educated, which is the "guilty until proved innocent" aspect."

I think that's right, more or less. Some LAs don't take it so far as that. I think they'd argue that it isn't possible to check up on everyone all the time while complying with the previous law (and with the EHE guidance issued to them by DCSF in 2007, to which the CME legislation specifically directs them to refer), and therefore they interpret CME as giving them no additional responsibilities with respect to home educated children, only with respect to other children.

Home educators, of course, tend to promote the latter interpretation!