Amazing LGO - they never let us down!

[appropriatelytrained]

Amazing.

Before Christmas, the LGO ruled on a case concerning my disabled adult brother and cuts to his services. They investigated properly, got the files, reviewed them against national criteria and found the LA wanting. They ordered a new review of his services and changes to practices.

Today, with the most clear cut (and accepted) failure to put in place statementing provision for my son (a child obviously), they fail to find fault with our LA. Yes, this is a breach of the law, they say, but really, they ask, what could the LA have done to make things better?

Errr put the bleeding provision in place! What was stopping them? Service level agreements and er MONEY!

The 'formal investigation' consisted of a letter to school and a letter to the LA yet it took 10 months!!!!

As part of my complaint, my solicitor did an extensive and exceptional legal argument on the vexatious ban which was supported by my MP. The LGO have clearly not even read it. Their answer in a small paragraph response to the 14 pages of detailed legal argument she sent is - oh well, it's up to councils who they call vexatious. It's not a matter for us. Yes, we publish guidance but heh that's between friends, no one needs to follow it! Bless you you silly fool. Or at least it seemed felt like that

Really, absolutely incredible. Why can they not even be half way constructive? They have the power to bring complainant and council together, to review files, speak to witnesses. Yet they whitewash everything in the hope you'll bog off.

I am not someone who bogs off!

They have also invented a new expression to reduce the time a child spends without provision - weeks become 'working weeks'. So the failure to put in place any keyboard skills for my son for 5 months (they were supposed to be daily) is reduced to '11 working weeks'. WTF! I had to point out that on that basis there were only 14 'working weeks' between his statement issue and the date he started keyboard skills - so he was without them for 11 of the 14 weeks!

Yet, interestingly, DS's new school were able to put laptop provision in place THE DAY HE STARTED!!!! This new school are still demanding S&LT provision to no avail from the same crappy council but this time they won't lie to cover the council's arse like the last shower did.

Why are the LGO always like this on SEN? They already had to start their investigation again after issuing an initial judgment which said - go away everything is in place. The council have apologised and explained. I had to point out that not everything is in place and the council are lying.

Their verdict - you are right, everything wasn't in place but go away, the council have apologised and explained. This is the apology they issued when lying about provision.

All I have had since is a vexatious ban!!

Hi AT

Ignore my thoughts on your other thread - I see MP is already involved.

They (Ombudsman) are so keen to clsoe complaints. Like you I had to ask for a revision before having complaint upheld.

One of my numerous points of contention in that complaint was lack of proviison. That particular element of the complaint, as in your case, was not upheld as 'it was for the Council to decide whether the cost of independant provision was a reasonable charge to the public purse'.

Considering that my DS had no provision named in his Statement other than one which he was no longer age appropriate to attend and the LA had admitted it had no provsion I would have thought that independant provision was reasonable - obviously not!

It's an open secret that the Ombudsman is in cahoots with LAs. Most of their staff are ex-LA employees.

It's far from an independant and transparent investigative body.

I doubt it will ever change.

God Wet - it's truly appalling isn't it?

I don't get why there are so many organisations willing to go into bat for the elderly or vulnerable adults (of late anyway) but no one is interested in kids.

- don't know what to say.

appropriatelytrained

you have raised a few interesting issues.

unlike adults children do not have a vote at elections.

Parents are not at all organised into lobby groups, and assume that the so called disability lobby groups will be working on their behalf.
Most existing lobby groups have their own internal agendas, such a promoting a specific remedial program or support product which is about their funding, which leaves those who have the disability alone and with no real support. Some even try to ignore the recent developments in research that improve the general understanding of the issues because it could be damaging to their sponsors and therefore their funding and income. Such is the politics of disability support.
It is easy to dismiss a single parent, but not so easy to dismiss a group of parents who have votes, and actively campaign in their local community and nationally.

MumsNet and other similar forum could be the focus for some new parent based lobby groups for the various disabilities.

just a few thoughts.

'Some even try to ignore the recent developments in research that improve the general understanding of the issues because it could be damaging to their sponsors and therefore their funding and income. Such is the politics of disability support.'

NAS anyone?

Indeed. They work so closely with the LAs. One of our regional NAS officers was also a part-time LA ASD outreach. No conflict of interest there then.

The Early Bird Plus franchises drove me mad too. Ok, some helpful info, but run by the LA in the name of the NAS and used as a way of preventing statementing requests.

Ditto the NAS accreditation of SN schools. Our local SLD school has been so accredited so the LA are saying this endorses their approach generally as a centre of excellence. DS does not even go to the school but they are trying to say look we can't be crap at autism because the NAS say we are brilliant. Which means one school has painted the walls white and laminated symbols so is ASD friendly, the NAS accreditation does not extend to assessing the actual quality of teaching. As far as I am aware most children who go there never progress to anywhere else, those who start as non verbal, leave as non verbal.

Yes Agnes, I feel this also fits with the NAS's culture of persistent 'disabilising' rather than empowering children by giving them skills. It is more expensive initially to do the latter, but over a lifetime there is no contest?

It's a pity party and I don't want my child pitied. I want him skilled and challenged and empowered with a real sense of his own identity - his strengths and his difficulties.

We were told again and again at the Early Bird Plus course 'change the environment and not the child'. I understand that and I wholeheartedly agree that reasonable accommodations must be made for children with disabilities but this is too often used to mean leave the child as you can't change him, he's autistic don't you know? It's interesting that this is a cheaper option for services too.

Our LA are accredditing ALL their special schools with NAS. That means that all Special schools will take children with autism as well as whatever else and children with autism will simply be sent to their 'local' SS thereby avoiding transport costs.

These schools, in order to keep their accreditation as supplied by the LA, will offer outreach to mainstream schools for children who aren't MLD.

The model, overall, isn't terrible. The problem is the quality of the provision that this model is going to deliver.

Sorry the LGO have been just as useless for you as they were for me AT. The reviewing officer ignored all the evidence too in my case.
I've given it up as a bad job and gone to ICO instead who at least seem interested, thorough and in possession of some understanding of the law involved.
If I can get the LA a slap on the wrist and even better a fine I'll be happy

Quite [shocked] to hear about this NAS endorsement of schools etc.

didn't know that wAS happening.

It should stop. It just creates a semblance of support that the LAs are hiding behind.

Think my NAS support may cease very soon.

Our LA is paying the NAS £40k for the accrediation. They are planning to be the 'first NAS approved Authority'.

But what I want to know is, - who is accrediting the NAS?

Insanity - that is interesting. My other thread is about S&LT pretending they didn't have records of a meeting for 6 months and just disclosing them recently.

The PHSO have been useless so I'd kind of given up hope with oversight bodies.

Star - precisely. They are a big wealthy organisation and I sometimes wonder, cynically, if their model of doing things helps them generate more cash.

AT, we were on parallel paths with LGO complaints a few months ago and thought we might have the same investigator (we didn't). I asked for a review/ complained.

My review of the case recently came back with a very confusing 'we can see why you complained about the council as they were very naughty but the investigator didn't technically carry out the investigation improperly so we won't look at your case again'. I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.

They are truly crap!

You can judicially review an LGO's final decision on the grounds of ultra vires - explained here

This would cost though unless in the child's name and you would have to take legal advice on that.

In my case, after first investigating and closing it down because the council has said 'sorry about that but all provision is now in place' when it wasn't, they reinvestigated and said 'not all provision was in place but the council have previously apologised and couldn't have done any more'.

Of course the fact that they were apologising at a time when they were lying doesn't seem to make any difference

Also, the LGO seem to be saying you can break the law as long as you seem to be doing your best!

But, worse than this, there is no actual evidence at all, from two investigations, that the council were 'doing their best'.

All the ridiculous woman has done is write a letter asking them a few questions. As if they are going to say: it's a fair cop, we are liars.

In our case we had had the go ahead to go to JR on the grounds of irrationality.

The LA kept asking had we been granted permission and once we were granted permission, had the barrister ready to go they changed part four of the statement from naming a school that had already said they couldn't take him to the independent specialist school so the JR was abandoned.

Even so the LGO "investigated" and could not find any instance where LA had behaved less than properly. Whereas surely if you are granted permission for JR for irrationality then it's pretty obvious that there has been maladministration.

That is incredible!

I can't see how a Local Authority acting unlawfully, and in a way which is clearly judicially reviewable, cannot also be guilty of maladministration.

Did you get legal aid for your judicial review? Was that in your child's name? That was a review of the LA and not the LGO?

The LGO seem unable to distinguish between lawful and unlawful actions in a public law sense. If an action would be deemed unlawful by the courts, it should as a matter of common sense, also be maladministration. What is there to save it from this?

As I said at the start of this thread, it is interesting that the approach I encountered in a non-SEN case concerning a disabled adult seemed far more rigorous and robust.

What is it about SEN?

Yes we were granted legal aid in ds's name. I know the judicial review was of the LA. The complaint to LGO was simultaneously more or less but even knowing that the LA dodged JR the LGO still found that the LA had acted reasonably throughout.
The investigating officer didn't seem to have the faintest idea about statements and procedures to be honest. For example the February deadline for amending phase transfer statements she didn't consider a deadline. She didn't see why I had a problem with the LA refusing to finalise a statement. The list is endless tbh

Its exhausting isn't it?

In my brother's case, the reviewer got the file and independently applied national standards to his case without having to be guided.

As the education law duties are so clear, I don't know why on earth there is such confusion about them. But you do get an overwhelming sense of bias from them which is reprehensible when these cases concern children.

In our case, after waiting ten months, we get her crappy judgment a couple of days before DS goes into Gt Ormond St for two weeks. It tells us we have to reply by a date which is only three days after we return.

The case worker knew this was happening and there was a lot of stress involved, and all her investigating appeared to have been concluded by last November.

Her timing is therefore inexplicably bad.

Why would your default mechanism be - if in doubt support the LA.

I think it could be:

(a) LAs are constantly, scandalously bad at putting provision in place so there would be a deluge of maladministration verdicts which would have no effect as the departments are not fit for purpose

(b) There are so many awful cases (if you read their judgments on their site) that anything less than a child being wholeheartedly failed for years is going to be met with a shrug of indifference

Perhaps other council depts are just not this bad.

How LAs get away with flouting the law so consistently I will never know when central government depts appear far better in terms of accountability and transparency

Perhaps we should write to the minister for local government or whatever he is called now??

I don't have the patience to complain again about the latest farce from LA tbh. LGO favoured line seems to be that you can go to SENDIST if you are unhappy but they don't seem to consider that if you have an LA who employs every stalling tactic in the book recourse to SENDIST can be painstakingly slow. We aren't there yet and it's twelve months since AR and now the LA have applied to strike out the appeal if that happens where is my recourse?

LGO 'investigator' in my case kept going along the lines of 'obviously in an ideal world, everything would be done perfectly but not doing things correctly is inevitable, but it's not a perfect world and it isn't actually maladministration unless something very very bad happens as a result'.

Lies lies lies lies.

York Office seems to be particularly bad.

I have given up on LGO case as some of the points were out of time and therefore at their discretion. I am focusing now on collecting evidence for next one, which will be completely watertight as far as I can make it so. The LA are so arrogant that even the 'mistakes' which LGO were eventually forced to recommend that they apologise for have been repeated in this year's Annual Review/ amendment of Statement cycle.

You could not make this up.

Ds works for our LA in shared resources and he says heads would roll for far less than what happens routinely as a matter of course in the SEN department. For example if their department gets an FOI request it has to be completed within the week (preferably within 48 hours) and passed back to the head of services to be signed off. Every FOI request I have put in to SEN department hasn't been answered within twenty working days and they only answer to request more time when you alert them to it overrunning.

Avoidthelight - the same with us. They are incapable of repeating the same mistakes. Just not fit for purpose.

Insanity - I know what you mean. I wonder if they all get away with it as they all complain about how stressful their jobs are on the front line looking after the little disabled kids and battling their overbearing parents. They seem to act with absolute impunity.