LA delaying issue of provisional statement - help please.

[beautifulgirls]

What if anything can I do? LA backed down and agreed to issue a statement to DD#1 after I put in an appeal to tribunal. The problem is that they agreed to this in writing on 26th March and so far I have not had a provisional statement. I called them to chase up their decision as they were over the deadline at that point to respond to the tribunal about the appeal anyway. At that point they told me they were planning to delay the proposed statement as they knew I was waiting on a further report to come in. I told them that I was not happy with this and insisted at the time they issue the proposed statement without delay as there was plenty of time to feed this report in before finalising the statement anyway - I then put this in writing to them the same day. They had a panel meeting on 11th April and I heard nothing. I rang on Tuesday just gone and was told they hoped to have the proposed statement to be by the end of the week (as the report had come in to them on 10th April anyway...their excuse being they were now adding this into the proposed support) and still nothing has appeared.

So - what to do now. We are 4 weeks now since they backed down and well over the Code of Practice guidelines too. I will certainly be calling tomorrow and putting the conversation in writing afterwards but is there anything I can do otherwise in all of this? It seems to me they are just delaying and delaying (long story on the whole decision process since applied last May!) and it feels like they are just trying to avoid any funding for this term if they can get away with it?!

Have you withdrawn the appeal on the LA backing down or did the LA write to you and say they no longer opposed and would be issueng a statement?

If it's the first one then you will have to wait for the LA to take their time - if it's the latter you can remind them that they only had so many weeks to make a statement and if you don't have it be the end of the week then you will be complaining to the LGO for their maladminstration.

The LA wrote to me and tribunal saying they would be backing down. The tribunal then automatically cancelled the hearing.

Thanks wasuup - I was thinking I would have to give them some sort of deadline and threat of further action - just wasn't sure how to go on from there about the further action! I looked up the LGO site (did complain to them once before about something for all the good it did us ) so will take from there if I have to I guess.

Yeah LGO are rubbish but use them as a threat and judicial review.

Something along the lines:

I have been advised by my solicitor to consider initiating judicial review proceedings and to complain to the LGO in regard to your delays in issuing a provisional statement. If I don't have a hard copy of my sons provisional statement by....I will proceed with my solicitors reccomended course of action.

You could also to the Tribunal and ask for the appeal to be reinstated as you have not actually withdrawn it on the grounds that the LA have not complied with their undertaking. The Tribunal would take a very dim view of that.

Thanks wasuup and Nigel. Both good points. The case officer wasn't in today so sent an email to her and have given them until this Wednesday to come up with the provisional statement (as that is two weeks since the panel meeting and ample time to comply). Have stated that failure to do so may result in a complaint to the LGO.

Solicitor threat and tribunal getting involved again would be a good idea though. Will keep this up my sleeve for now.