JohnDL

Many thanks for your responses. We had a meeting at the School today which turned out to be the Annual Review (although it was not clear from previous correspondance that this was what it was going to be). Both the SALT and the LEA's Educational Psychologist were present. A specific Special School was mentioned by the Educational Psychologist. Armed with the information above, I queried whether the teachers at that school were qualified to teach ASD children and I was advised that they undergo a year's training and also have experience from being at the school. Whether this is actually sufficient or appropriate remains to be determined. I asked the Educational Psychologist to send me details of all of the Special Schools in the LEA's area and he said he would get back to me with further information. In the short term there was agreement that our son should stay where he is, but perhaps go down a year to reduce the gap (he's currently in Year 3). There was no suggestion that the Statement would be amended to reduce the very specific provision already in place (that we had fought hard to get). We will wait and see what information is provided. The SALT advised us to speak to the local National Autistic Society group to get information from other parents in the area as to their experiences of the local Maintained and Private Schools. If it does come to having to have a Private School if there is not suitable LEA school for our son's needs then it looks like we will have a very hard fight on hands.

Hi, Our SALT (who we have always trusted in the past) called us out of the blue and very forceably and insistently started pushing us to get us to agree to move our son from his current mainstream school to an LEA special school, ahead of his first annual review which is now due. She stated that the gap between out son and the more able members of the class is starting to widen. Having spent a year and thousands of pounds in the SEN appeal process trying to get an apppropriate SEN that reflected my son's needs I am suspicous about the current situation. I seem to recall that there is something about Special Schools in the SEN process which means that they are not subject to the same level of monitoring as mainstream schools, but I can't put a finger on it at the moment. I am concerned that, unless we are very careful, my son will end up dumped in some "dump" school where his SEN Statement needs will not monitored and will not be met. I am also concerned that if my son moves to such a school, the LEA may then use this as leverage to attempt to try to amend or cease to maintain the Statement. I could imagine that keeping him down a year may be a solution, but I read somewhere that the LEA will only tolerate this for one school year at which point they require him to be moved to another school. I understand, we, as parents, have a veto on any move away from his existing school (but this may not be correct). Does anyone have any comments on the above situation?

Ok, It's now sorted, although it has taken a further two weeks. I made a 2nd Complaint to the LA's Monitoring Officer on the fact that the Wording was not as ordered by the Tribunal and sent a copy to my Local Elected Councillor. The Monitoring Officer (typically the Council's Solicitor) has a legal duty to investigate any allegations that the Council has acted illegally. If the Council has acted illegally then a written Report must be circulated to all Elected Members of the Council. As a result of this, I got a grovelling e-mail from the LEA official involved (although I would not make any presumptions on the sincerity). I was then approached by someone else in Education Department regarding the wording. I made it plain that I wanted the exact wording as ordered by the Tribunal and that I would be scanning, OCR'ing and comparing any documents that they sent to me. It took a further three drafts of the Statement exchanged by e-mail to get it right, but finally on Thursday of this week they delivered the correct wording. I still had to twice request that they send me a signed hardcopy - otherwise arguably the previous version would still stand. It took a week for it to arrive. My advice on others after this experience is that, even after a Tribunal decision, the LEA may change the wording that has been ordered. If caught out they may put this down to Mistake, but if you don't catch it, then they get away with it - whether it's intentional or just plain incompetence on their part. Subtle changes to the wording may affect the (continuing) provision to your child. In my case the wording changes were pretty blatant. To anyone who trying to get an LEA to amend a Statement, I recommend the following: 1)Get some OCR software - it doesn't have to be the most recent - e.g. ScanSoft Omnipage version 15 is 5 years old and can be readily obtained on eBay for a few pounds. 2) Scan any documents into your computer as bitmaps, run the OCR on them, save them as Microsoft Word documents and then compare them in Microsoft Word.

Very many thanks for the advice. How certain are you on the issue of there being no costs because it is on behalf of a minor?

Hi, Many thanks to all those people who gave me advice in the run up to our Appeal to Tribunal against the LEA's Wording of the Statement. Even without the support of a Lawyer at the Tribunal, we were able to get the wording we had originally requested. The two-hours per term SALT support from the LEA was replaced by a one-week per week support from an ASD-Specialist SALT. So after the 5 weeks allowed the Amended Statement did not turn up. After making a Complaint to the Council's Monitoring Officer the Statement was arrived on the 43rd day after the Tribunal. Everything that we had complained about in the LEA's original Statement was corrected in our favour in the Amended Text Ordered by the Tribunal Judge. When the LEA's amended Statement finally arrived, whilst the provision that we were after was included in the Statement, it does not match the Text that was ordered by the Judge and many things in the wording that we had complained about and had had removed have crept back into the LEA's version. Other specific text that we asked to be added that was agreed by the Tribunal has been taken out again. I quoted the Tribunal text to them "The Order of the Appeal Tribunal is binding on the LEA. The Authority has a duty to do what has been ordered." What do I do now? It seems to me that if I do not lodge an appeal against the wording within 15 days again, then I will have no right of appeal. If I do complain about the wording, then the LEA may refuse to provide the support. If I complain to the Ombudsman then this could take a year. I guess I could apply for an Injunction, but this is probably going to be very expensive. It seems to me that the LEA believe that they can flout the order of the Tribunal with impunity and adapt the wording to suit their own purposes to the detriment of my son's education. Has anyone else been through this situation? The LEA are really be unreasoable and probably acting illegally. Is there any chance I could recover my original costs (of the order of £5k including lost income) since at the moment we appear to have not got the what this expensive legal process was supposed to resolve?

Im trying to determine whether I should have a lawyer as a representative at the Tribunal. I would be interested to hear about other peoples Tribunal experiences. My 6 year old son has ASD and we are appealing to the Tribunal in January against sections 2 and 3. He has severe learning difficulties and has the capabilities of a 3 year old. Ive seen the Tribunal DVD and it looks like that, in theory, the Tribunal is inquisitorial rather than adversarial and I am wondering whether it is worth having a Lawyer represent us. The Local Authoritys representative is a lawyer who appears to have dealt with hundreds of cases over the last few years on behalf of LAs. I have found a Lawyer who is prepared to turn up on the day for about £3,000, and I have naturally asked him what benefits having him represent me would provide what he proposes to charge. He states: 1) He would be useful for pre-Tribunal negotiations on the day 2) He would be able be able to deal with any legal issues that may arise 3) He would make sure the evidence would be put forward in best possible way It seems that a lot of LAs just cave in after the first 10 minutes of Tribunal, so I am concerned that, whilst I want the best possible outcome for my son, having a lawyer may prove to be an extravagant waste of money that could be better spent on other things. Note that I am not appealing over the choice of school, but rather the level of support and provision of Speech and Language Therapy. I would therefore be very interested to hear from other people who have gone to Tribunal and their experiences whether they thought they could have done better with a lawyer, or else whether having a lawyer was worth it, and experiences of any tactics or tricks of the LA Lawyer which might have made having had a lawyer worthwhile?

Many thanks for all of the advice. I managed to find a good, affordable SALT on http://www.helpwithtalking.com, but I must say that most of ones I came across on the site were very expensive and unaffordable. Perhaps there are websites for other SALT guilds? Perhaps it might be a good idea to setup & construct an independent Web search page listing SALTs with the scale & breakdown of fees they are quouting and then allow them to sort in ascending and descending order? (and similarly for Lawyers?). The risk is, as with all Price Comparison websites, that you have to trust that the information displayed is complete and accurate and is not being corrupted by advertising revenue. I was also recommended the site www.sossen.org.uk which has very good information.

Hi, I have an appeal coming up in January and have until December 15th to submit evidence. My son has ASD and the local authority have offered only 2 hours Speech and Langauage support PER TERM! I have been looking for a Speech & Language Therapist to write a report and attend as a witness, but have been appalled at the scale of fees some of the Independent practioners are charging - often as much as £1,500 for a report plus £1,500 for appearing at the appeal, plus fees for travelling time, plus fees for distance travelled on top. I have given up with the lawyers as they would push the total cost of an appeal over the £10,000 mark! This really does appear to be a sick game frequented by buisnesses who are just in it to extract as money as possible. Are there any websites listing Speech and Langauage Specialists who charge reasonable levels of fees?