Tribunal paperwork, a few questions

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

I have a refusal to assess tribunal in the autumn, I am due to send the attendance form in by mid June. A few questions if anyone can help.

I am obtaining independent reports. The court paperwork says I have to send all evidence in as soon as I have it, is it reasonable to wait till I have all three or should I be sending them in right away? I have already had one back for over a month, but another is not going to be completed for at least another couple of weeks.

Also, I was intending to go through them very thoroughly myself, pull out points that are supported by the SENCOP etc into a document. Would I need to send that in as well? There doesn't seem to be any guidance.

Is there anything else I need to be doing? I have agreed the date with all my experts.

When i went through my appeal my solicitor only send evidence in on the final evidence date. She didn't send stuff in as soon as we had it and neither did the LA.

If your pulling stuff out and putting it in a document just to make it easier for yourself and to organise your thoughts then no you don't need to send it in. Just send in the evidence that supports your appeal.

no no no do not send in your evidence before deadline! my solicitor strictly advised against this as then you are giving the LA a chance to retaliate by iniating yheir own -corrupt- assessments.

That is exactly what I thought, why give them months to pull it apart.

in reality I didn't get my reports done / received until about a week before the deadline anyway so was okay to send them in at final evidence - I know the court paperwork does say to send them in as soon as you can but you will get the report and you may need to make amendments etc so that can add a bit of time on as well.

My LA played very very dirty with me on this.

I had 4 reports for refusal to assess - one was ahead of everyone else as I got a cancellation - so his assessment/draft report was done 3 months before evidence deadline. The others were assessed/drafted about 6 weeks before evidence deadline.

Because of my DS's complex needs and the difficulties in determining which of his problems is related to which diagnosis, all the indies didn't want to finalise they own reports until they had consulted with the draft versions of everyone else's. Fair enough. A common, and sensible approach.

However, on the very day that I first received the final batch of draft reports (6 weeks before deadline), the LA started to be put into Tribunal a series of very heavy-handed and increasingly aggressive requests that any reports had to be submitted as each one became available. They also threaten me with a costs action if I didn't release the reports immediately. Unfortunately, the Tribunal agreed with the LA and ordered that they had to be released immediately.

Unfortunately I couldn't send any in because they were all in draft format and, being that it was August, all my indie experts were away on holiday. So the LA got more and more heavy handed and more and more threatening firstly towards me and then towards my solicitors. But I couldn't release them as they hadn't been finished and everyone was on holiday. Ultimately, we managed to get them finalised and sent in over 2 weeks before evidence deadline.

Despite getting the reports in 2 weeks before evidence deadline, the LA still attempted to bring a costs action for thousands upon thousands of pounds, firstly threatened on me, but ultimately brought against my solicitor. My solicitor successfully fought it off because all of our explanation was true - all reports were in draft form AND the indie experts were all on holiday. The Judge found that we had all acted lawfully and we hadn't been unreasonable in not sending in the reports. But only because they weren't available/ready.

It was the most stressful part of my 18 month battle with TOWIE Cunty Council because the exact same days I was reading for the first time how severe my DS's problems were, I was also having to legally fight a nasty spiteful aggressive LA. They also lied though-out this costs action.

A year later, for the appeal against 2, 3, 4, TOWIE Cunty Council did exactly the same they had accused me of doing and released their EP report less then 24 hours before evidence deadline when it had obviously been available for at least a week - if not longer.

And they wonder why I went to the LGO about them.

So be very very careful if you sit on any reports. It could back-fire

Bloody hell. That sounds horrendous May, were you successful in the end?

So the one that I've sat on for a month already could in theory get me into difficulties. I'm not in the same LA BTW. I haven't got a solicitor and wasn't planning to use one for this, or an advocate. My evidence deadline is not for months yet.

Yes, they conceded refusal to assess after this little episode - 2 weeks before the hearing - 48 hours after evidence deadline. (They claimed that they'd conceded on evidence deadline LIARS ) But in their costs action, they claimed that they didn't believe anything in the reports. The Judge told them off about this and said that if they didn't believe the diagnoses, then they should have gone to Tribunal.

A year later, I appealed against parts 2, 3, and 4 and won - DS is now in an indie ss. With this appeal, I sent all my reports in over a month before evidence deadline - and the LA ignored them and refused to engage with me at all and sent in their EP report 24 hours before evidence deadline.

I also complained about them to the LGO (not about this, but about them not following the Ed Act/SEN CoP) and the LGO upheld my complaint.

If your reports are in "final" form, I would be very reluctant to sit on them. If they are in "draft" form and your expert is waiting for other reports, then that's fair enough.

One is in final form as of about a month ago, one I have just received and is final if I don't want anything changed. The other won't be ready for a couple more weeks. The first tow consulted with each other, the third has the first two reports. It's a minefield.

I was thinking about phoning IPSEA and SOSSEN and asking their opinions on this too.

I suppose they have no way of knowing I've got them at the moment, it's just if they see the dates when they do get them.

Glad you got there in the end BTW May. That is bizarre, conceding when they claimed not to believe the reports. Devious.

It was the most bizarre episode in a totally bewildering and bizarre battle with them. Their lengthy costs action against my solicitors is the most strangest rant I've ever seen in a "professional" legal document. It ranted against all my experts and threatened to report them to all their regulatory bodies (2 years on and, surprise, surprise, they still haven't). Even more bizarrely, they ranted and raved against every single educational lawyer in the south-east - even those who I hadn't instructed(!!).

It accused everyone and everybody of working against my son's best interest - except, of course, TOWIE Cunty Council who always had my son's best interests at heart.

Before you decide to do anything, ask IPSEA and SOS!SEN. But whatever they advice you, be warned that if you have a nasty LA, they could do what they did to me.

Ultimately, the LA's tactics didn't work though, because even though they had all my reports long before they commissioned their own, and they sent theirs in on evidence deadline, I still won everything my DS needs.

Actually thinking back over this little episode, and with the benefit of hindsight and what I've subsequently learnt on this board, it has the very strong whiff of BS about it.

I've got a call booked with IPSEA straight after half term, will also speak to SOSSEN. I'm not going to worry unless I suddenly get a demand from the LA, they could have found out from the school that the assessments have been done. It's the case progression form that's the tricky bit, you have to say why you haven't sent your docs yet. That's due mid June.

May, that's a totally bizarre way for a council to behave - especially for a refusal to assess appeal, it's not like it's the most massive deal. And they have to have been stark raving mad to try to claim costs when they conceded your appeal - that's an admission that they were in the wrong, surely? Did the council do it themselves or did they have outside solicitors?

No, don't send in your reports until close to the final evidence deadline. Your defence is that your case is still being built and you aren't yet certain what evidence you want/will need to bring to support it to ensure the tribunal have the most relevant information in order to make their decision.

It is reasonable to decide not to share a report with the tribunal, and then to change your mind later. Not every single piece of paper that comes through your letter box about your child is their business.

Was BS involved in your case Towie?

Can you ask for very minor change / corrections to your reports and get them re-dated? Can you find a typo somewhere?

I think its not unreasonable for a busy parent of disabled child to take a month to read reports before sharing but I think go much beyond that and you might be criticised given the wording of the order.

It was an "interesting" turn of events - to say the least! Highly stressful because they got increasingly aggressive.

Also in their ranty document submitted to the Tribunal, they also claimed that I had lied and hidden a report. But I had previously gone into great detail with them about this, because this report simply didn't exist - and they knew that. There was no report for me to hide!

They also tried to claim punitive damages from my solicitors because the solicitor's actions, the LA say, caused my DS to be denied provision. But the punitive damages weren't to be spent on my DS but for them!

The judge just laughed at it. Best thing about it was because they went after my solicitor, she came back with an absolutely blistering response, shooting the LA down in flames paragraph by paragraph - and I didn't have to pay her fees for this as the action was against her company. So I got about 5 days worth of free legal advice whilst the lawyers fought it off.

I think the judge must have laughed when s/he read it. The judge's answer was quite scathing at times - told the LA that my solicitor couldn't be responsible for all the solicitors in the south east. Told them if they weren't happy with the indies, they should be raising it with the prof bodies, not with the tribunal services. Told them they couldn't claim punitive damages because that's not what tribunal is about. Basically told them to go away and behave themselves.

It is a truly remarkable document. Originally I thought it was written by their in-house Tribunal Officer (a qualified lawyer). But having relived some of those days again via this thread, as i said up thread, I am now firmly of the opinion that it stinks of BS involvement.

And they wonder why I hate them so much!

Any chance of giving the initials of the tribunal officer involved, May?