What happens when the LA fail to repond by a tribunal deadline?

[beautifulgirls]

Local authority were supposed to notify the tribunal and us as parents by 5pm today of their response to the appeal (against a note in lieu). We have heard nothing at all from them about this. The letter I have clearly states their response must be received by 5pm (so not just in the post). So, what happens now?? Do I need to notify tribunal that they failed to notify us on time or do I just wait and see as presume tribunal will either have heard and let us know what was said anyway, or will not have heard and will act accordingly with whatever it is they do. What will tribunal do if they haven't heard from the LA??
Thanks

You have to send a request to the tribunal requesting that a judge asks the la for its reasons for not complying with the tribunal directions and that the judge considers barring the la from taking any further part in the process.
If the tribunal judge agrees they will set up a direction to the la to respond within a short given timeframe.
Whatever the la does the tribunal judge is highly unlikely to strike out the la's opposition on the basis of wanting a fair hearing with both sides involved for your childs interest.
However there is a chance that the la might not know how to respond to this or not have any good reasons for responding to these new directions then they might stand down then and there and agree to write a statement and it will be a record of the la's poor adminstration should you wish to complain to the LGO after the tribunal case.

bump?

If you ever want a tribunal judge to look at anything when you are emailing or writing to the tribunal always use the words " I request" also.

In our case the tribunal came up with a threaten to debar all by themselves if the LA couldn't come up with good reasons for not responding.

The LA responding blaming it all on the parents failing to communicate with them and being too difficult for them to respond helpfully.

The tribunal accepted this as a possibility

Same here Starlight but I entered a late submission in response which was accepted by the tribunal against the LA's lies. It depends on the judge you get doesn't it I guess they all have their ways. In our first tribunal the judge didn't hold back telling the LA what he thought of them but in the last tribunal the judge was softly, softly catching the LA out psychologically so they didn't even know they had been caught out.

Thank you all - such a digrace they can just do what they want and get away with it really. I was all set to call the tribunal on Monday and find out if they had heard anything but it seems the school received an email yesterday. We had the school fayre this morning and the head teacher came to chat to me about it. I obviously don't have it in black and white myself yet but it looks like the LA are backing down and not fighting us at tribunal so DD will be getting a statement. Next hurdle making sure they put the right provision in there in the right places. Such a relief we have got this far at least though. It's taken us nearly a year to get to this point.

Good luck LeonieDelt - I hope they see sense before June for you.