Moondog and working - record keeping advice again

[appropriatelytrained]

After persistent chasing, I have received a letter from a manager at the Trust in response to my questions about the meeting the S&LT service attended earlier in the year.

The head of the service said that at this meeting my son's head claimed he had had a programme ongoing all academic year. She did this in an attempt to head off complaints from me about the lack of provision.

This was completely untrue. There was no provision until May. But I have had to go to the PHSO and then chase the S&LT and PALS for 5 months to get disclosure .

I get a letter - close of business today of course - saying it was a meeting with the LA for Tribunal witnesses. It was just to discuss Tribunal preparation and as it had no therapeutic outcome, it was not recorded on the file.

This is clearly crap. Not only has the head of S&LT already said that my son's programme was discussed, but that it was discussed with the attendee from the S&LT service, a senior S&LT who the LA was trying to list as a witness. They failed because the Tribunal refused as she'd never met my son.

Would you expect that type of discussion to be recorded when it was in dispute? Wouldn't you expect the S&LT to know if there had been a programme in place any way?

There has been a succession of poor practice which I am determined to pursue. The NHS S&LT filed a report supporting the LA's case when she'd never even met my son!

Interestingly, it was two days after this meeting in June, that I received a vexatious ban from the LA preventing me from corresponding with them.

I'm another one who has endured a CP investigation in the run up to Tribunal.

Particularly galling as it was to cover my complaints that my son had been assaultd physically by 2 members of staff at his last school (of course a HT stranglng a year old has never been investigated!). This meant my MP didn't do anything re my son's last school. Those staff members are free to abuse other kids to their hearts content (SS for child protection - don't be silly!) & there is nothing I can do about it as the various agencies closed ranks.

Cahms turned sinister at the same time - I ended going to a private mental health charity to get help for my DS following the assault and have an official black mark against my name for refusing any future contact with my local Cahms.

CP is a good way of scaring parents into submission. Like I said these people can and do work very well together - just a shame it's not in the interests of the child as the tax payer intends. It is shocking - and the worst part is when it gradually dawns on you that yours is not an isolated case of corruption, lies and spite.

Well obviously they know who I am although they all seem to think I'm banned so perhaps they don't look much. I just make sure I post millions of posts so that it would be a full - time job to monitor.

I am not even shocked anymore at the stories I hear on here.

The whole system wears you down. I am going to give up my complaint with the LGO because when I come up with a valid legal argument against his reaons, he comes up with something entirely new to excuse the LA from their failure. Never mind that the latest reason seems to point to incompetence of the LGO themselves - at least the LA gets off.

I realised that I have to give it up because it was impacting on my family life and ds's education. Haing a stock-take the last few days made me realize that. And even if I win - what do I win but an apology. Hopefully the people I deal with now will know that I am not willing to be brushed off.

Just want to express my admiration for those who continue to fight.

I am sorry to hear that trying but I know precisely what you mean.

Do you know if they have got to what they call 'formal investigation' stage?

Not all investigations seem to get to this stage and the LGO won't explain the criteria for this but it is at this stage that they seem to actually read the files rather than just ask questions.

It's a whole load of stress you don't need, but I wonder if it's worth everyone who is disappointed with an LGO case simply asking for their customer experience/services team details. Then you could write and set out your disappointment and summarise the difficulties you have encountered in getting a fair hearing.

You could then copy your MP just to flag up these issues for him/her.

AT - when is the 'formal investigation' stage? I have responded to his provisional report and now received a final report that has completely different reasons to the provisional report for excusing the LA for not doing their job.

It is a good idea to ask for their customer experience/services team detail and write to them and copy in my MP just to highlight what a waste of time and resources the LGO is.

Oh well, just the thought that the complaint had caused the LA and school some problems made the time spent on this quite worthwhile, I suppose.

This is something which is not entirely clear - when they actually undertake a 'formal investigation' as opposed to simple inquiries and they are not particularly forthcoming about it.

In my case, when I got the file, when the LGO originally inquired of the LA, they asked questions and when they didn't get a response they said 'we can make this a formal investigation'.

They said this was an 'internal term'.

When I pursued it because the LA were simply lying about having all provision in place, and submitted further evidence demonstrating this (although I have no doubt that they will lie their way out of that as well as their priority is the child after all!!), the LGO then wrote and said 'this is now a formal investigation'.

That was two months ago.

It seems that the LGO and LA then sort it out amongst themselves and the best you might get is a local settlement rather than a 'name and shame'.

But it does seem to me that there should be another way because this process becomes entirely adversarial.

For example, it should be possible for LA staff, school staff etc, to submit confidential information or 'whistleblow' to the LGO when they see things are not appropriate. They should be able to complain about poor funding or improperly reduced funding and consequent poor practices. Local councillors should be made to take ownership of poor practices. Common complaints should be investigated in a thematic way so that if the LGO get lots of new complaints about failure to put provision in place, they can pull these together in a set of new, clear guidelines to LAs making it clear what the LGO expects.

This would give you a yardstick to measure practice against.

It just seems that the current system disintegrates in to a 'you said' 'they said' bickering match that the LGO do not have the skills or investigative capacity to pursue and make proper determinations. So they choose the easy way out and make excuses for the councils. It is, after all, easier to upset a parent than a local authority with its resources and political influence. I quite understand where the LGO cannot make a determination on a subjective matter where it might be the LA's opinion against the complainant's but this does not explain why they consistently do form an opinion on such disputed evidence and why that opinion always favours the LA.

There is a complaints process. You could lodge a complaint about the way the case has been dealt with asking for an explanation of the change in reasons and pointing out any statements unsupported by evidence.

bump!

Wow, this is all so relevant to me right now, thanks for the bump star - I can't go into details publicly but please include me if any of you do decide to publish accounts of what you have had to go through. I'm on the up but there was a time when the constant "it's your fault" messages given to me by my LA nearly felt like they must be true.

It's great reading stuff on here because you then realise that you are not an isolated case, this unprofessional behaviour really is fairly common and the bullying and scaremongering tactics are not personal - it's their business. The business of pushing parents to their limits and beyond whilst some professionals engage in promoting themselves as caring professionals and receiving pats on their backs for saving money and/or face. It's crap isn't it? I'm with you AT in your view of what public sector workers aims and objectives should be. I do believe there are people out there that do serve the public but maybe they do t quietly for fear of recrimination for serving the public and not their line managers?

I only hope I can keep going in challenging the inequality and unfair practices that I come across for as long as I can. Good luck to the rest of you, I just feel like 2012 is the year that will make a difference for some of us and more importantly our children...........well gotta think positive sometimes!

One thing I have taken form my experiences is that I am no longer frightened to challenge anyone no matter what their "professional" status. I think to myself no-one can put me through anything worse than what I have already experienced. I find it can be really emancipating if you can see it this way, not that I can all the time but I try to gain strength from this thought when I need it.

When local settlements are achieved between the LGO and the LA there is no publication of a final report - I think this is why LAs are keen to reach local settlement so they are not exposed by any LGO findings. I think that a forum for sharing LGO local settlement stories might offer an arena for parents to share stories and for us to find common themes and (mal)practices. Direct quoting from LGO reports would expose the LA's which have not had reports published. I have previously been advised that I am free to publish a LGO local settlement report so wonder if we should/could individually and openly make such a request each time a local settlement is proposed?

I bumped it for a lurker, but glad you found it helpful.

It's a pretty depressing thread in all, but there is lots here that unites!

But you're right. I can talk to a balshy headteacher without quivering or even caring much about how I am perceived. I KNOW from the outset to get to the crux of the matter. No hints, excuses, I'm sorry but, I was wondering if, do you suppose, I'm sure you are very busy but etc. There is no point, it just delays and prolongs the pain rather than stop it.

I spoke to a new HT recently of a school that we were thinking of for ds, that didn't want him (or to be frank the expense of his statement) or me (to be frank a mother who would demand the statement was adhered to) and it was the best conversation I have had with any professional. In fact I have a lot of respect for the HT for her own frankness about now wanting us and why. It was bloody refreshing.

I doubt ds will go there now because her arguments were unsavory but perfectly valid and I understood them and understood why but I'll never forget her as the only one person in this whole sorry affair that actually took me on, head on, instead of talking bollox and having meetings about me behind my back whilst pretending that it was all about ds' interests. I've a mind to write to her and thank her to be honest.

In RL normally I'm the least "confrontational" person you'll ever come across, famous from school days for being a bit "soft". What DS & I went through in 2011 means the ol' popularity contest no longer even registers. Bottom line is my child is entitled (& I contributed 40% tax for the best part of 20 years to pay for!) to an education - simple as.

Obviously I'm still polite and actually thanked my son's current school in front of a tribunal panel so I'll always give praise where it's due. However, I'll no longer accept being patronised or insulted as part of the deal.

The best words I can hear nowadays out of a professional's mouth nowadays are "I don't know" or "I'm not sure - I'll look that up". These phrases tell me that I'm dealing with a/ someone honest & B/ someone with enough knowledge to know what they don't know iykwim.

DS is complex, I'll accept that, but a whole new layer has been added to that complexity because teachers abused him.

Star - in your shoes I would send that email to the HT. The genuine are so rare that I feel they need to know ther candour is appreciated, even if it means they can't give us what we want, they don't get our hopes up and waste our time.

One of the greatest deceptions of the last government was that "every child matters". (The new mob haven't been in power long enough to have developed their own tag line, though I can see where they are heading).

Very interesting comments.

Trying - I think we should publish any local settlement imposed upon us and maybe we should approach our councillors with these.

Star - yes, I agree it is easier when people nail their colours to the mast - however unsavoury that may be!!

Bochead - our LA's tagline is 'where everyone matters' but we change it to 'where no one gives a f**k!'

The best words I can hear nowadays out of a professional's mouth nowadays are "I don't know" or "I'm not sure - I'll look that up".

I agree whole heartedly, Bochead.
Very few peopel have the courage to do so however.