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?

Not my LA then - but, sadly, you could be describing mine too!

It is disgraceful what these LAs think they can get away with.

They don't think they can. They know they can because they do, and because even if they don't, it's fun innit!? There are no consequences except delayed funding requirements. Legal fees are fairly cheap and don't tend to come out of the SEN budget.

That's true. There's absolutely no accountability to their illegal practices. If I professionally did a quarter of what they get up, I'd soon not be able to work ever again!

To be fair, the real experts at my LA (EP/therapists/medical doctor etc) have all been very good. It's just the pen-pushers who have never been near a SEN child who are the ones who need to be held to account and have disciplinary consequences for their illegal actions.

rosielou - my tribunal was purely personal. the provision i wanted wasnt that expensive, my child had no education but the games and tactics were unbelieveable. at my tribunal they raised my parenting ability which up until that point noone had ever questioned - it was mud slinging at its best. they tried to goad me to lose my temper or make me upset with the lies but i somehow kept ultra calm and had a clear head as did my husband. we won hands down and secured a placement cost 3 x the amount we originally had asked for. it went to tribunal purely for the LA to put me in my place as i had challenged them previously with my elder son.

my best memory was being in a meeting with the LA and their solicitor pre tribunal to do the working document. both myself and dh went in with poker faces as advised on here. i just sat there calmly looking the sen officer straight in the eye and as they tried to get me to accept ridiculous things i would just say calmly no thank you, i would like the tribunal to decide that. it absolutely wound them up and now looking back, it was so funny to watch them losing their cool. they had to admit they had totally cocked the working document up and apologise to me through gritted teeth. the calmer i was the more upset they got!! its quite funny now thinking about it although was pretty stressful at the time. the thing is now is that if i ever come face to face with these people again which i will - i know i now hold the upper hand and will revert back to my sickly smiling at them and watch them wince again.

bjkmummy - oh I like that strategy of poker-faced 'the computer says no'! I shall remember it and adopt it! Although I will struggle and have to sit on my hands because I really want to shove their illegal no-provision Statement right where the sun don't shine!

I started out controlled, calm and focussed.

By the end I was just very obviously and uncontrollably bored.

There's only so many times you can hear:
'there are worse children than yours and they don't have what you're asking for',
'you can't make his asd go away you know',
'We can't specify the 1:1 because he needs to be independent',
'He can't have direct SALT because it needs to happen in the classroom with peers',
'He's a visual learner',
'The school are very experienced with children like him',
'we don't see the problems you are saying he has, would you like a parenting class?'
'You just have to accept that NT children are on a steep learning curve and he isn't'.

yes i was very much like the computer says no as a bit like stars post above i had become bored of listening to all of their ridiculous and stupid reasons for refusing provision and therefore forcing us to tribunal. it was how i was meant to feel sorry for them that they had never got a salt report and how hard it was for them never mind that my son had been out of school for blooming months and was being physically sick. its a game pure and simple and its shocking that we have all had to go through this. up until a couple of years ago i knew nothing but now can quote the sen code of practice inside out and can write case statements and rip apart documents , i can argue legal points with a barrister, have ridiculous conversation with ridiculous LA solicitors who did not have a clue about sen law although think the consensus on here was she did know, she was just checking my knowledge out. i enjoyed telling her that i was no longer prepared to discuss it with her as if she didnt know the law i wasnt going to waste a single second longer of my time explaining it to her when she was qualified and i wasnt! that was 24 hours before the tribunal when they were still trying to get me to accept OT and salt in part 5/6 - morning of tribunal they conceded the lot.

i enjoyed telling her that i was no longer prepared to discuss it with her as if she didnt know the law i wasnt going to waste a single second longer of my time explaining it to her when she was qualified and i wasnt!

I nearly choked on my biscuit imagining that one!

The thing is, you do say things like that eventually. You don't start out but that's the way it goes, because all levels beforehand are exploited. As a parent you'd much rather not rock the boat, work in partnership, hold these people up as the experts. As you slowly have your perception eroded, you become a lot more impatient and develop an acute awareness of how much time you have actually LOST by not doing it before, - all to the LA's gain.

She phoned me on the Friday - tribunal was on the tues - we were of to centre parcs that evening for the weekend and she phoned me just as we were leaving so I was in no mood to waste a single second more of my time and she had been useless throughout. She also wound me up as she had asked to come to the tribunal as a witness as she had never been to one before! The LA were also having a barrister. I said no and tribunal ruled in my favour. Then at a pre tribunal telephone hearing she asked again and the judge again told her no. Then at the meeting with the LA she kept making snidely comments about it. Then during this final call she kept going on about how she could negotiate with the LA on my behalf - err they are paying for you love! No way would I let her in my tribunal as I wasn't training her to screw other parents in the future. So it was the final straw when she started asking why I wasn't prepared to allow the salt an dot to be in part 5/6, bleating about it being 'Non educational' though it was all in part 2 clearly stating educational!

It's as star stated - I went in completely wanting to work in partnership all the way through- almost begging them to stop the tribunal and sort it out but they were having non of it- was clearly personal but it got them no where. It is all a game and that is wrong. I remember at the beginning someone on here told me that going through tribunal changes you and that is so true. I'm quite a placid person but my LA think I'm the devil reincarnated. It's already been made clear that im not welcome at support group coffee mornings where the autism outreach person will be as I found out she isn't a qualified teacher and she redacted reports. My presence would make her feel 'uncomfortable' same with transition events to be held at the council offices. I've been asked to consider what my attendance would achieve as again I will make some of the LA officers feel 'uncomfortable' so I'm blacklisted cos of people lying and making up evidence etc. you really couldn't make it up.

Aha, - I KNEW it about the non-teacher. I remember you suspected and you had to make a right ole song and dance to find out her credentials but I don't remember you getting the answer.

I doubt you'd want to put yourself through it, but you have every right to attend both support groups and transition meetings. Their 'uncomfortableness' surely lies with the fact that their lies won't trip off the tongue so smoothly if you're there.

If they are uncomfortable being in the presence of a parent that got a tribunal to rule that her child receives adequate provision then perhaps they aren't up to the job.

thats right star - i only made an issue as i had heard on the grapevine she wasnt so asked in a meeting and they hissed at me that she was a qualified teacher - then she was absolutely rubbish and wrote ridiculous reports which were completely fabricated which the LA were trying to use against me. i asked twice in writing if she was qualified and LA refused to answer - then they said she refused to give the information so went and got a tribunal order. tribunal said it was a reasonable request - never forget getting the reply - teaching qualifications - none!!! i should frame it!

interestingly when they were advertising the coffee morning and her attendence they advertised her as an 'autism specialist' doubt they would dare to advertise her as an autism teacher. she is the only autism specialist in the county/

i was going to go to the coffee morning with hubby but it then clashed with the new car being delivered so we couldnt go - will save it for another day but i was going to go. will deffo go to the next one

I wonder if the schools find her useless? They can choose to buy-in ASD expertise from outside, rather than use the LA's own. A competent, helpful specialist teacher (with a nice long list of qualifications) might find they get consultancy work quite easily in an area where the competition is limited .

Not that you would ever leave a few business cards lying about at coffee morning

i think that the schools opinion probably not printable - i did get to see the emails from my sons then head to the LA complaining bitterly about her and whoops - happened to slip those emails into my tribunal bundle! she doesnt work with any of the kids who are in the units so thats probably about 80% of the autistic kids in the county and she doesnt work with the out of county kids either, she only works part time and annoyingly i have to drive past her house every day to take my daughter to school.

shes only been in post a year = before that she was a TA in one of the primary schools before she got made redundant. the previous autism outreach person also got made redundant = she was a qualified teacher so they got rid of her to save money. she attended my elder sons review just after we had gone through judical review and she commented to me that in my county seeking legal advice isnt the thing to do. fast forward a few months and she lost her job. my friend phoned her regarding something and she said oh sorry cant talk as im at court! after losing her job, she took the LA to an employment tribunal which is pretty ironic. she now works for another company doing respite

Blimey. Interesting character. Your LA is full of them, what with that legal person too. Was she a TA previously as well?

BJK what an outrage!

I don't buy all the 'it's all about resources' crap either. Look at that example of wasted resources- spending it on crap, unqualified staff.

Also no one forces them to lie, to make stuff up, to take diagnoses away from children or vilify parents. NONE of them have to be party to that.

Simple answer- get another job where you can keep some self-respect. Work in Tescos, McDonalds, Starbucks - all good honest work compared to that!!

Bk that's great you said that. We have similar cold shoulder in our LA for daring to accuse autism teacher of lying even tho tribunal backed us! I now go to consultation meetings and say this is crap provision and a waste of money and the autism consultant doesn't tell parents anything that cannot be read in a £5.99 paperback. I'm past caring. They are rude to me whatever I do. Councillors are told we have this amazing service and need to know it amounts to someone shoving a leaflet through your door and telling nurseries 'all kids with autism do x' even when the one in front of the nursery clearly doesn't. The LA admitted mistakes in our case eventually - deliberately refusing to assess- but 4 years on I still hear the exact same thing happening to other families. They drafted an autism strategy last year and put in it a Preschool intervention that does not even exist yet as the NAS did an audit for autism accreditation for the service and identified a gap - so the LA just made up a service that doesn't exist. Did any councillors or professionals question this? No. I was the only one at the meeting who got up and asked what is this service, what interventions is it using, who is supposed to deliver intervention the parent or a therapist? They couldn't answer a single question. That's what they do they sit around for months drafting strategies to show how much they care while knowing there are no suitably trained staff to deliver any intervention. Same with diagnosis massive task force spent months drafting strategy but didn't employ a psych to do the work and so waiting list went up to 2 years while the strategy was being drafted. Lots of pen pushers and gatekeepers employed to cover up the gaping void where the provision should be. 2 months after our tribunal the LA persuaded councillors to buy in a certain sen lawyer to minimise tribunal losses. Not a penny was spent improving the yawning gaps in provision the tribunal found. But money could be found for lawyers to stop the next parent winning. It's convenient to compartmentalise the sen money and say there is not enough. But look at public sector as a whole and there is more than enough money for every disabled child to get their needs properly met. You wouldn't find a patient on expensive cancer drugs being shunned at a support group.

Yes, my LA did this:

'NAS did an audit for autism accreditation for the service and identified a gap - so the LA just made up a service that doesn't exist. Did any councillors or professionals question this? No. I was the only one at the meeting who got up and asked what is this service, what interventions is it using, who is supposed to deliver intervention the parent or a therapist?'

And the thing is, everyone believes it exists. I saw in my FOI stuff, the SEN case officers emailing, asking each other to point me to the 'many autism services' but no-one seemed to cotton onto the fact that they only existed in theory, or as half-hearted pilot projects whose funding ran out years ago.

The only good thing so far is that my son is having his needs reassessed and a new core assessment done by social services as they cannot now deny his level,of needs due to the placement he is now in. The social worker ran for cover during the tribunal. She is part of the inclusion team so sat and listen whilst the LA no doubt slagged me off. Told her how disappointed in her I was as it was my son she had let down not me. He was out of school for months and at no point did she check in him. I told her anything could have happened to him and they had a duty of care to make sure he was okay, she just fobbed me off saying that she knew he would be fine as they had no concerns about us as parents. Shame that the LA mid tribunal tried to mud sling - it just came across as them being desperate. Again I just sat there and said nothing, didn't rise to it and that winds them up even more.

Thinking about it we have no services here at all. They are now going to try and open a free school in 2015 so that could be an interesting ride as both my sons could be at risk of the LA trying to force the move into the new school on use as both boys will be I transition periods so I reckon I've got a year of calm ahead of me before the battle armour comes out yet again. My plan now is to go quiet, go under the radar. My silence will kill them as they will be wondering what I'm up to.

Just to highlight how dire our parent partnership was, once we went to tribunal they would not help us. Post tribunal she contacted me and said as she had never seen a working document could she see mine, plus could she see my independent reports and tribunal decision. Needless to say I never sent them. My county is so small that if a parent needs help, they will know how to find me themselves and I wouldn't be surprised if parent partnership sends them my way.

I'm not saying it will never happen, but generally LA's prefer to deny to save money, rather than take provision away, with the exception of ABA in mainstream because that is provision in full view showing everyone up and it annoys the hell out of them.

One LA I know gives laptops instead of statements , with the threat of the laptop being removed should the parent continue to ask for a statement. It's a fairly deprived London Borough and most parents think they've struck gold with a laptop