Tribunal win makes the news

[EllenJanesthickerknickers]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-22663448

Saw this story on the BBC news website. Surprised it made the news. Wonder if they're MNers?

They didn't know anything about my case. I was part way through with an issue I wanted advice on whether I needed a legal person at that point. They insisted that I submitted all the paperwork, but without a discussion I couldn't submit paperwork as my paperwork stretched to 6 lever-arch files at that point and would have cost more than £300 to photocopy. I needed a discussion on the way forward first.

I found the inflexible, arrogant and greedy.

And I'm not the only one. It isn't an isolated experience.

But as I said before, someone from the firm actually came onto MN and confirmed they want upfront payments.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/1659154-SEND-Lawyers

I can't find the other post atm but this one does try and justify it.

Thanks Star - I read this post too when I still lurked on the forums back in January

She doesn't say that they want money up front? Unless I've misread it? Personally I think it's a reasonable response from her (she's not my lawyer) and others in that thread. Whilst I am not a lawyer, I am a professional in another sphere who would only take on a client if I knew I had the experience and expertise to be able to professionally help that client.

I can only relate my own experience of them and say that it's not the same you experienced. I have never paid them any money upfront nor have I ever been asked to. In fact I always pay them in arrears - this isn't a special arrangement, just their normal ts&cs.

I've found them excellent and, for me, they have shown me time and time again that they really care about my DC and their future. In fact in the whole mess of the last 18 months, whilst the old school busily covered their tracks and the LA worked totally against us, they have been the only ones that have worked in DC's best interests. The solicitor involved in the case has always personally gone the extra mile for me & DC and has worked through the night on several occasions for DS. My DC is not a straightforward case at all.

As I say, I can only relate my own experiences.

We are currently using them, and have been for 6 months. They have never charged us upfront either. They have been very clear about the costs, as I was worried and we are struggling to find the money.

All the other law firms we spoke to had similar charges (and all those contacted were from recommendations on here). I am sorry that some have not had such a good experience. I guess it highlights the fact that not everyone has the same working styles or relationships. It is good that there are different suppliers, and just like when hiring a plumber, it's good to get a few quotes and meet a few to see which you feel you can work best with.

Of course, but if you can't even have a dialogue without paying for it you won't be able to make an informed decision.

On that other thread, the solicitor justified the accusation by stating that they have to see the paperwork first because parents are too stupid to know the difference between a final and proposed statement. Presumably they felt justified in charging for that level of consultancy from the outset!?

To be fair, since I never did get to speak with a solicitor, it could have all been the work of an over-zealous gatekeeping secretary making up the rules!?

Star, despite being severely dyslexic, I am far from stupid (I say that tongue-in-cheek because I was always told I was stupid at school) I am a professional with a successful career. However, because I was totally new to SEN law, I had absolutely no idea at all about the 'system' and the 'process' so didn't know that there was such things as Proposed statement and a Final statement. If that makes me stupid, then I hold both hands up .

SEN law is a minefield. It is so so wrong that we have to even get solicitors involved for a basic British human right - the right to a school education. As I said in other posts, if this was criminal law, there'd be an outcry at the shoddy way we are treated. We are treated as guilty until proven innocent. Yet my LA has broken the law in so many ways doing the final Statement, but (I have been told) the Tribunal will overlook all of this and just accept illegal practices as the 'way its done'. It's disgraceful.

And whilst there are LAs who clearly think that they are above the law, there will be lawyers making money from the parents. If my LA had acted properly in the first place, then I would never have had to get lawyers involved.

My only conclusion from the whole experience we have been through is that the system is horribly unfair. Yet again we find ourselves in a situation where the 'haves' who have the resources (be that the money, time, education / information) are able to fight for what they're entitled to. Meanwhile, the 'have-nots' are left not getting what they're entitled to until things reach a crisis point, which is often too late.

So how does a parent who DOES know the difference between a proposed statement and a final get that across to a solicitor who won't engage? How does one save themselves the cost of that unneeded consultancy?

I don't think SEN law is a minefield at all. I think it is quite simple. But you are correct that it BECOMES a minefield due to the unwritten and illegal rules that the LA, tribunal AND SEN Lawyers perpetuate.

I don't know. Maybe you are right and you were a bit too thoroughly gatekeepered by over-zealous staff?

It is a minefield because of the way the law is applied and the games all parties play. As a professional in another sphere, I have never before come across so many out and out (deliberate) written lies, tactics and games played.

I'm going to shut up now because I'm very near Tribunal and don't want to out myself before then .

Good luck. I hope you get the provision you need.

SEN is so flipping uncomplicated, that it's laughable that someone would say it's complicated.

The SEN Code of Practice gives a step by step guide. Anyone who is willing to read and is able to comprehend, can see exactly what should and shouldn't be done.

Star - you speak as one that has had to become a 'lay-expert'. I remember with amazement that 5 years ago I knew nothing about SEN. It is one of those complex worlds that we only ever become familiar with when we have to. Teaching staff could run rings around me because I had never even heard of SA or SA+ or an IEP. I was ignorant rather than stupid.

Good luck rosie. Bracket everything in the run-up that has really pissed you off. Tell yourself it's not personal, it's just bureaucratic rationality in times of austerity. Side-step the illegalities - no WD, no problem - and be uber-reasonable and calm.

lougle - I could go through both the SEN CoP and the Education Act and show you paragraph by paragraph where it hasn't been followed even slightly.

Keepon - Thanks for the good luck. Unfortunately some of it is personal - the LA's own actions have proved this. Somewhere along the line the LA have forgotten that there is a small vulnerable child involved in this.

I think Rosie's right, it's the game playing which trips otherwise sensible people up and reduces them to paranoid, incoherent loons (speaking personally ). The law isn't that complicated, certainly for non-borderline cases it's usually quite obvious what 'should' be considered. But the law has precious little to do with the dynamics of the fight, which always seem to end up with all the goodwill of a messy divorce between the traumatised parties of a forced marriage arranged by two intermittently warring, highly dysfunctional extended families.

It's probably rooted in the general confusion and scarce resources, combined with inflexible schools, typical teacher arrogance, tiger-parent-defensiveness (again, me anyway ), and compounded by the various LAs encouraging half-truths, outright lies, back-stabbing, and fabrication of evidence in their desperation to save a few quid.

At the risk of sounding competitive, it was personal with us too, and some other families on here.

Culprits tend to be Herts, Essex, Surrey, Wiltshire, North Yorkshire and Bexley with Birmingham coming in a close second with Merton.

Personality disorders being alluded to, illegal sharing of inaccurate information, undercover parent governors sent to befriend and give judas kiss, child protection initiation, DLA fraud allegations, marriage under question, families split, people forced to sell up, medication insisted upon, refusal to implement tribunal rulings, threatened teachers, propaganda spread, blaming of difficulties in child on terminally ill grandparent.

Many have experienced these above. Me, I've experienced them all.

Oh and I forgot, paed removing dx just before tribunal, though that one wasn't me.

Ha ha - I like it sounding competitive (I'm not making light of this, just in my own coping way, am having to laugh at this, instead of crying). Unfortunately Star, you've named my LA in your list.

It's worse than a messy divorce. I divorced 1st husband 17 years ago and was left to bring up two tiny children totally on my own. That experience was NOTHING compared to the games of my LA. At least with the divorce, we were both abiding by the same rules and were both fundamentally decent people even though at war!

I know if feels personal - it has certainly felt personal since 2008 when I was reported to SS and it still felt personal a couple of months ago when the LA sent in a m/s EOTAS tutor to tick boxes and smear me (DPA resulted in emails etc, meetings called with inclusion officer) in run up to tribunal.

My point is that I experienced the game-playing because of my structural location (pita parent insisting on having child's need met) and that the teachers/LA staff/LA EP etc were engaging in game-playing because of their economic structural location (with the aim of minimising expenditure regardless of cost to the child and family, their own published policies etc). Staff don't behave idiosyncratically but implement policies that they did not draw up and do not question. They will behave like bastards to everyone on their radar who is not absolutely thrilled with a refusal to assess/crap statement. It just feels a bit odd when the friendly case worker is replaced by RoboSENcop unless you are familiar with the good cop/bad cop tactic (mis-spent youth ). It comes as a shock to realise that being the parent of a child with SEN means that lying to you and tricking you become legitimate tactics.

The 'proof' that DC can't cope in the mainstream has to be actual rather than predicted. This wait whilst your child fails and becomes increasing distressed feels inhumane. I may feel that they are heartless bastards and want to rip their heads off and shit down their necks but I know that they are fellow human beings and I have DS2(7) and have to work with those same people to get his needs met.

Besides which MD is right, it's the game-playing that does for us in the end - we struggle to understand it morally or legally or emotionally. If I understand it rationally then they are not really bastards and so I am not seething with pent up rage. I choose not to seethe (at least whilst sober!).

Keep, the cost of provision we wanted was LESS than what they were trying to put in.

There was no economic rationale for our tribunal.
The tribunal was about egos, empire building and power-hungry bullies.

Not all of them. But the culture of that particular LA appears to be that people are only recruited if they are weak and unchallenging of the controlling vindictive Leadership of certain sections.

To taunt a parent after a lost tribunal is not something that 'pretty decent people caught up in the system themselves' do.

Oh, I hope that isn't 'my' LA, although I rather suspect that it is

It's not a secret that I'm talking about Herts.

I think the only thing you can do in a LA like that is either move out, or find an independent so that you never have to deal with them.