Bromley LEA refusing statutory assessment - please advise

[T3009]

I have applied for my son to be assessed but have been informed by the SIPS LInk worker that Bromley is refusing to assess. Has anyone gone through this - please
advise.
Son is 3years and diagnosed with High Functioning Autism.
He has also been awarded 6 hours of support at the nursery and SIPS dept are refusing to provide more support - he is in mainstream nursery for nearly 20 hours a week.
Anyone had such exprience with Bromley???

You have 2 choices.

1. You can accept this, wait 6 months while gathering as big a paper trail as you can of how your child is failing to access the curriculum then apply again. If you choose this option for gawds sake don't tell the nursery you are evidence gathering or they'll do all in their power to see you don't get it.

1. You can formally appeal to Tribunal. If you are on benefits or a very low income you'll qualify for legal aid to do this. Contact IPSEA for details on how.

Only you know how much evidence of need you currently have. The one thing I will say is plan your approach now and stick to it as it becomes increasingly more difficult to get a statement the older a child gets as the authorities take the attitude of "well they've coped this long without help". Do not allow yourself to be fobbed off for the long term by this initial refusal as school will loom faster than you think & the transition to school can be a nightmare for the HFA kids.

Bromley and Bexley focus funds and effort on the Grammer School cohort so you are up against a tough LA. However they often crumble when parents show from the outset they won't be fobbed off .

(I'm in a neighbouring borough with an older child so like many have researched all the educational options within travelling distance over the years).

Bromley can not have a policy not to assess or statement. It is illegal.
What Bromley will do is to refuse to acknowledge anything until you are within 5 days of Tribunal and then concede. What they have done by such a process is to save themselves the childs support costs in the meantime.
Make a parental request for statutory assessment now - letters on the IPSEA web page. Get independent reports. Contact me off forum and I will give you the necessary names.
Regard this process as an additional form of taxation. It is a lot less stressful than believing that they hate you.
If you can not afford private reports see if you are eligible for Legal Help by ringing the community legal service help line via direct gov.

I agree with bochead, I'm also in a neighbouring borough and Bromley and bexley are not renowned for their SN support. Personally I'd start as I mean to go on and go with Tribunal hopefully you'll get the result that Nigel suggests which I've heard off quite a few times - goodluck

Dear all, many thanks for the useful response. It's helpful to have guidance from those who have been through the process.
We have already applied for statutory assessment and awaiting for response from Bromley LEA - they have 2 more weeks (within the 6 weeks period) to respond. I rang today for an update and they informed me that the matter will be considered by a Panel and a decision letter will be sent to me within the 6 weeks period.
With my request, I sent private diagnosis of HFA, private SLT reports. I did put contact details of ABA Consultant and Nursery manager in case they wish to liaise with.
So far nursery has been extremely supportive.
However, I have been informed by the SIPS worker that the LEA will very likely reject this request as they are only assessing those who will go to a residential unit. I informed her that this was illegal and Bromley cannot bypass the current Law in force and have a "blanket policy".

I will definitely gather as much evidence as possible and appeal the decision.
Nigel1, I will certainly contact you and try to obtain private reports.
Has anyone been to the tribunal for refusing assessment - any experience - what do I need to gather in terms of evidence etc etc.

Many thanks

T3009 - my friend proceeded to tribunal (we are in the lewisham borough) just as Nigel describes they caved and gave her ds a statement for 30hrs a week before the hearing on the grounds that they'd not followed due process when considering the statement application. You may find they don't accept the private reports as lewisham insist on NHS ones (idiotic) so they may request that you see NHS professionals before they will consider the statement. In lewisham the NHS appointments happened quickly because they were on a deadline from the panel to submit their reports.
I and my ds ms school took a different approach, our statement request was rejected 3 times and we were given recommendations by the panel to see if the ds improved - the school carried out these recommendations and then kept reapplying until we got the statement - but they did fund 121 support for ds out of the school budget, so ds didn't suffer