What do I do? LEA avoiding my calls

[CheeseToasty]

I recieved ds proposed statement and I wrote back expressing my concerns. I have been ringing to find out whats happening and constantly being told the person I need to speak to is unavailable ( in a meeting/ away from their desk/ on leave) and I have been asked to leave my number and they will get back to me but they never do. I emailed them and they said sorry and that they would ring later but didn't. I finally got the person on the phone and they then said she had to look it up and would ring me back. They didn't. I rang again today and the same happened again. What do I do? Finally statement is due really soon and I am really worried.

Thanks for reading

Did you keep a log of every phone call, with the date and time?

If not, make sure you do so from now on.

It is more powerful to give a list of days and times that you called with the names of who you left messages and any quotes, in a letter, asking them why they have still not returned your calls.

This also helps if you subsequently end up at tribunal because it shows that you tried to communicate but the tribunal has become necessary to be heard iyswim.

You let then finalise then tell the parts you don't agree with if they don't agree to change them then you submit an appeal to tribunal within 2 months of getting the final statement. Better than wasting time at the proposed stage to, they can mess about with that for months wasting prescious time.

Yes, glorious standard LA tactic. Ignore and then when you get too many letters which you have no intention of answering, get angry and accuse the parent of being demanding/vexatious for sending too many letters

Star's advice is good. Send it recorded delivery.

We had exactly this treatment when the LA didn't like the amendments we wanted for ds1's statement.

I was given some excellent advice on here about writing a short, clear letter stating what we wanted them to do - in our case either issue a second proposed with our amendments included or if they refused to make our amendments, finalise so we could appeal.

We told them we had taken legal advice on the situation, pointed out that by failing to re-issue or finalise they were preventing our legal right of appeal, gave them a date to respond by and said if we hadn't received a response by that date we would instigate legal action.

It was that letter that finally got them to issue a second proposed. We had already written asking them to, but our first letter was ignored, it was only when we threatened legal action that they suddenly acted. They responded with a second proposed with less than a day to go to our deadline.

Thanks for the great advice I will start a log. I am less worried about it finalising now. My LA must be watching MN because they finally returned my call after I posted. Only to tell me of delays grrr.

If they are messing you about with delay tactics then ask them to finalise regardless and log an appeal. If they are that difficult now it is unlikely you will get what you want at the end of this without a tribunal anyway. At least some provision will be in place meanwhile once it is finalised.