Complaint back from council...

[Bilberry]

And they have answered question and not upheld any of my complaints. Not really surprising though as the questions they answered, while similar to mine, are not the questions I actually asked . However, they have also sent us his CSP which I will go through carefully. If it is correct I think I will have to leave the complaint lie, frustrating though it is that they didn't address any of my points.

Bil I'm sorry. The complaints systems seem to produce such variable results, but if you don't ask, you don't get, so well done for giving it a go.

Do you think you will register with them the differences between the questions you asked and the ones they answered?

My council did this at stage 1 and 2 of the complaint. It took getting to stage 3 and the chief exec viewing the complaint to get an apology. In my stage 3 complaint I added another section where I complained that their response was inadequate (in a face to face meeting a senior of the council said that we gets thousands of complaints - you can't expect us to be thorough!)

How have you written the complaint? I wrote a paragraph for each part and then quoted the relevant bit of the SENcop (example below) so there was no wriggle room. If all else fails then you could go to the Local Government Ombudsman.

The core of our complaint is that the LEA has disregarded the SENCop in that they admit that JJ has additional needs (Document 6) but did not go ahead with assessment. The SENCop states that if it is likely a child will need a statement, then the LEA must assess.

5.11 of the SENCop states:

The importance of early identification, assessment and provision for any child who may have special educational needs cannot be over-emphasised. The earlier action is taken, the more responsive the child is likely to be, and the more readily can intervention be made without undue disruption to the organisation of the school. Assessment should not be regarded as a single event but rather as a continuing process.

We believe that therefore it was not in the best interests of our son to delay assessment as the above legislation that ‘early…assessment…cannot be over-emphasised’. This early assessment leads to a more responsive child which we believe would result in a more positive outcome. We find that the Local Authority’s refusal to assess because they believe that JJ's skills are still at the emergent stage directly contradicts the SENCop.