Ot and speech therapy reports not being done but stated in the EHCP

[SurreySenMum26]

My child is at a NMI sen school. His ehcp states occupational therapy and speech therapy reports are both needed for his annual review. In his many years at this school, this has never happened.

The LA say they pay the fees for school to furfil the ehcp as school have both therapy on staff. School say the responsibility to forfil the Ehcp can not be deligated by the LA. I have "mildy" complain / questioned the school on this for years. I get no where. You have to be a bit careful as it's not state, they have their own rules.

I don't care who should be responsible, it's not happening and the ehcp is legally binding.

I have complaint in, with the LA and the LA say its down to school. Should i esculate this? Who is at fault here? School are not covering themselves in glory here, it's a common bugbear for parents. Taking the fees, saying they can meet need etc but not monitoring the OT and SaLT progress. School don't like being accused of things and try to stamp out complaints rather than muse them

Can I clarify what you mean? Is it that the EHCP states that the SALT and OT hours include either the preparation of a report for or attendance at the annual review?

Is SALT and OT being provided? By whom?

It's that a report is prepaired by both for the annual review. There no report. The therapy also stopped in year 11 but there was never any report,even when getting the therapy.

It's more that I should had years of reports but I have none

If professional time for the AR process is detailed, specified and quantified in F of the EHCP, it must be provided and can be enforced. As per section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014, the LA is ultimately responsible. Their duty is absolute and non-delegable. If it hasn’t been provided for years, have you looked at a pre-action letter?

However, if the wording is vague and woolly, it can’t be enforced and you should look to tighten up to the wording via the AR process and appealing if necessary.

Same for delivery of direct provision.

Separate to the LA’s duty to provide the SEP in F, the AR process should include ensuring updated advice and information is circulated prior to the AR meetings. Although when professional time isn’t allocated in F, this is often very limited.

Yes there is time allocated in the EHCP to prepair the report.

I tried a reaction last year to the director of children's services and got a reply along the lines of "what are you wittering on about?" This LA is exhausting

If the wording is detailed, specified and quantified rather than vague and woolly and a pre-action letter didn’t work, did you move forward with JR proceedings?

No I didn't push on with the JR. I think I was fobbed off then life got in the way. My LA have started to accept JR and go ahead with them. Then they are taking a year and you can't find anyone to represent you. There's no sure fire of enforcing anything. They even ignore tribunal orders

Unfortunately, JR is the way to enforce provision. Most don’t get to a final hearing. If the LA see you won’t enforce provision, they will continue to ignore you and fob you off. It takes perseverance to find someone with capacity to take your case, but it is worth it.

Years ago I did a preaction letter and it was very effective. Nothing touches them now. They seem to given up on everything. Possibly due to a upcoming split so in the meantime, they know they won't exist in the current form soon?

Unfortunately they do know me very well. I am a constant headache for them. But mostly seem to get no where very slowly. I did a recent SAR where a case officer was told to deal with me straight away as I have form.for escalating. I still seem to get no where. I must be top ten on their hitlist.

They have terrible form.for admission of fault in complaints, but not rectifying the complaint.

All LAs are increasingly ignoring pre-action letters because they know a) it takes more perseverance to find someone to take the case than it did in the past, and b) that some parents won’t go through with it anyway.

While you may escalate matters in other situations, if you sent a pre-action letter but didn’t follow through when the LA ignored it, the LA has seen that you won’t enforce the provision and they will continue to ignore you on the matter unless you show them they can’t.

Oh dear,I think your right. They grind me down.

They will absolutely never look at complaint if you go legal on them, whether that's right or wrong it's just what they do. I put a complaint in about how they handled a KST and they threw the complaint out as I was awaiting a appeal hearing. That went to LGO but even the LGO is very dependent on who picks the case up. Even though clearly sendist appeal foes not get involved with consulting secondaries. It gets messy. I might be better off escalating this, paying for a private salt and going for that cost back in the complaint. But then the private report can't go into the ehcp without appeal which takes a year to be held. It's very hard to get a good outcome