More LGO

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Now, I know you really miss it if I don't have a weekly thread about the LGO

You may remember the saga: three provisional views, two final decisions, two pre-action protocol letters and two years of my life later, LGO emerge blinking into the light with a concession of a very small amount of maladministration.

However, they will not accept:

1. Failing to put a child's provision in place for four months is maladministration despite the fact that there is no reason for the delay. They distinguish between arrange and deliver - though, strangely the Education Act doesn't

1. That there was anything wrong with the decision to call me, a parent, vexatious, 2 weeks before my Tribunal in 2011. This meant I could not correspond with anyone but a complaints officer who would decide whether any of my correspondence got answered. LA confirmed that they did not need to investigate as council followed their policy - even though, yes you've guessed it, they didn't actually follow their policy. A policy which they promised the LGO they would review to include a warning, and guess what, they did not

Anyway, my MP wrote in support. LGO took half a sentence out of his letter. He has finally got a letter back saying (in so many words) 'well she wrote lots of letters and the Council have to protect their staff'

How does that explain the misuse of his letter?

How is it they can refuse to investigate something but then just list all the evidence they think hurts my case?

So you can write letters to an LA with a child out of school and an LA not putting provision in place. They can ignore them, brand you vexatious just before a tribunal and tell youn they will not respond to you.

But the LGO gives this a clear bill of health.

I don't have anything to add, but I noted our LAs policy on claiming people are vexatious litigants was somewhat lacking, it seems, in any impartial control or supervision.
Are you still in sight of what you want to achieve, or has it become a daily battle against detail? It's really hard sometimes.

I'm now just trying to expose so if you are on twitter do retweet me!

Legislature
Administration
Judiciary

And a free press.
Everything else is a waste of time.

I wonder if has an LGO equivalent.

Is there a website I could look at? Or like on Facebook or something?

Mumu - not sure that leg/jud/admin are very effective at protecting rights of disabled children either.

And Press don't seem to be interested in CFBill or SEN issues.

But surely it's the nature of the statementing process that you have to write lots of letters? You've got to ask for assessment, send in your response to the assessment, respond to the draft statement, remind them when they're missing the deadlines, check out when they're going to put support in place, start the appeal, serve appeal documents on them, serve your attendance form, serve your reports, correspond about the working document, point out that they are actually supposed to arrange what is in the statement, etc etc etc. The only way that would be avoided would be if the LA did something radical like obeying the law.

Exactly nennypops.

I think I made about 76 contacts with them over 10 months which included all emails and letters (even the ones saying thanks or acknowldging receipt).

These letters related to:

-statutory assessment
-issue of draft statement
-comments on draft statement
-meeting arranged for us to comment (only for LA ED Officer to say 'don't know why we are here as I haven't read any of the reports )
-issue of statement
-appeal
-possible mediation
-my son being out of school
-the failure to arrange his provision - he was waiting for the provision to be put in place so he could go back to school

LA of course:
-ignored my questions about quantification and specification
-ignored my questions about the SLT provision they were offering
-responded to my complaint about the failure of provision only to say it was now in place when it wasn't
-they wrote to me telling me this - they LIED. It is now agreed it wasn't in place when they wrote

• then they wrote to Tribunal telling them provision was in place- they LIED. It is now agreed it wasn't in place when they wrote
• when they realised the provision hadn't even got off the ground 3 weeks before a Tribunal and they were contradicting themselves as their NHS SLT buddies were saying one thing and they were saying another - they sent me a letter out of the blue saying I was vexatious.

This meant:

-I could not correspond with anyone in their Education Dept again. - I had to go through a complaints officer.
-She would only respond if there was a substantially new matter raised (so where did that leave me in respect of the working document??) I instructed solicitors

• They did not give reasons in the letter for their decision just a list of reasons why someone coould be called vexatious
• they said it would be reviewed in 6 months

LGO say:

• LAs can follow any policy they like and as long as they follow it, they won't get involved.

-having said that, they then choose to dwell on the LAs reasons for the decision and make no mention of anything I say, my lawyer says and SOS-SEN say

• they say the reason the LA gave for the decision 6 months after they made it is acceptable - i.e 76 contacts over 10 months. This was stressing officers - who? All I see from DPA disclosure is a load of shitty Ed officers and Ass Officers talking about things they can 'use against me at Tribunal' (nothing wrong with that say LGO)

-They followed their policy - they did not. It was clearly not used as a last resort

• The policy would be reviewed. It wasn't and I had to chase the LA to do so. I then had to demand an apology for this. The LGO say the fact that they apologised makes it ok
• the LA have reviewed their policy and will be adding a warning requirment. They haven't done this.

That should say

• the determination would be reviewed after 6 months. It wasn't and I had to chase the LA to do so. I then had to demand an apology for this. The LGO say the fact that they apologised makes it ok

What really galls is how quickly some people dislike receiving any complaint and love to use the word 'vexatious'. I was absolutely slated in a school meeting once for 'constantly' writing letters of complaint when I had sent 2 in a year and only for serious matters!!
I also hate how when you get responses, anything that they don't want to or can't answer is just ignored.You then have to chase again to try to get the answers. Perhaps its just a ploy to enable them to label you vexatious?

Very true actually re c and f bill. ESP when mainstream education stuff gets reported all the time.

If LA officers get stressed by parents asking them to do their jobs and obey the law, then they're in the wrong jobs. Poor little flowers.

Precisely what my lawyer said.

If they would only do their job, that would be an improvement!