I have decided to share the latest part of my journey with Hampshire County Council Special Education Needs and Disability service. (HCC and SEND). The reason for this is that there will be learning for other parents embarking on specialist provision for their children and young people, and I hope also that policy makers will be able to see the consequences of the current system and how it is played by local authorities.
And I do mean played. The game here is one of saving costs at the expense of children's education, wellbeing and preparation for an independent adult life. Often this is achieved by a process of delay - a pound that doesn't have to be spent for a year is a pound saved off the current budget. And every year the child or young person gets closer to the point where the LA doesn't have to spend anything more.
My story relates to my son. But it isn't about him and I will not include details of any of his specific needs or health circumstances. Suffice it to say that he has multiple and complex needs that have been made worse over the years by the education system.
To start the blog off, we have recently completed a round of Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) review and gone throug a process of draft amended plan where we had two weeks to provide our response.
As ever, once we had the two week deadline, it became almost impossible to get the SEND team to respond to email communication. In this case, they had asked me to provide references for some of my feedback to professionals reports as they couldn't find 'a few of them'. I asked them to specify which they couldn't locate. They didn't reply and so I had to spend almost a whole day one Sunday going through all of the comments and providing the references.
So, the Final EHCP was released with a note from the team stating that none of my comments had been included. Or to put it another way, all of the professionals input had been excluded. And that provision that my son needs to help him engage with education and learning wasn't in place.
My options? To appeal or put up with it. And to appeal will almost certainly take a year to complete, hence saving the LA money no matter the outcome of the appeal.
My first strategy following the issue of the Final EHCP was to initiate a number of requests for information and complaints. There is a professional team at the LA that are expert at tennis. Batting these back to me with minimum effort on their part. You just have to get used to it!
Firstly I initiatied FOI request for information around the panel that issued the decision to get a better understanding of whether they acted within their terms of reference. I was led to believe by the SEND team that the Panel had recently changed its operating procedures. I have now discovered this wasn't the case. So I responded witih a request for the current terms of reference, to discover that there isn't a single document for this as the Panel covers many different areas. I am continuing this quest.
I also complained about the Outcomes that are included in the Final EHCP as these are clearly no achievable now that the LA has disregarded the professionals advice. And, to note, that Outcomes are not appealable through some quirk of the legislation that set this whole proces up.
The LA have now just bounced my complaint, in their words:
While achievable outcomes are not appealable, they directly relate to the provision which can be appealed. However, we note that you are separately appealing this decision, therefore we are unable to consider this matter within the complaints process. This is because this should be reviewed under a Tribunal and the complaints process cannot intervene in a Tribunal.
And yet they know that the Tribunal will not discuss Outcomes.
They also cannot know that we are appealing the decision as the first step is to go to mediation rather than appeal.
The reason for my complaint isn't just trying to cause mischief. In order to get the Outcomes reviewed it will require the LA to commission an Education Psychologist assessment of my son. This will be able to create the new outcomes, but much more importantly will reinforce the pieces that the LA have excluded from the report. The only difference being that now the LA cannot refuse to include them any more.
My next course of escalation is to take this to the Local Government Ombudsman LGO.. Which I will do, of course, but I know that they are also very nervous about their boundaries in this grey area.
I will let you klnow how I get on with the LGO. If they agree to investigate, then it is something that others can use.
My next steps are to create another complaint around the process run by the LA in getting to the EHCP, and to write a Subject Access Request for all information that the LA hold relating to my involvement with this process. I will also ask my son to do the same for his information. Let's find out exactly what has been said and done.
I will let you know how I get on with the other complaints, the SARs, and the FOI request for terms of reference for the Panel.
Comments
Post a Comment