Is Autism being treated under disabled Children mandate not Autism mandate

Longman, thanks for sharing your experiences, one man versus the world, been there myself, whilst those organisations which should act as a collective(NAS) stand in the wings, giving lip service and doing nothing in reality bya bought off hush budget and not wishing to risk there gravy train.

In Scotland, after a discussion on this matter, I think the long-term strategy is too do away with the direct councils obligation and put the autism strategy under the NHS health service remit, via the socialwork department to identity resources and treatment plan in accordance with the CLINICAL requirements(child or adult) via a protection socialwork/ treatment plan remit.

So in a sense Autism is a medical condition and treated as such and should not be organised primarily by a council or local council lead, basically because they do not have the expertise. They don't have the services anyway due to the cuts and politics. It means there must be a growing secter economy for third party autism services via the social work and probably a good revenue stream for the NAS and there circle of dodgy friends.

I did pursue the issue of my former local authority's non-compliance, and sounded out the responses I got with NAS.

Basically they were doing nothing 'wrong' in the sense of pursuing any remedy, and were possibly even trying (though in my view they were very trying). In terms of meeting the government expectations at the first review point, they had got a diagnosis mechanism for adults (albeit one set up by the local NHS years ago) which was better than what many counties had. And they were promising to implement the requirements (procurement manager, partnership board etc). The Government seems at this stage to be quite happy not to push for compliance, and nothing much seems to have happened since last April.

As to suing a council this is vastly harder than you might think. With the same council 13 years ago, I tried to rectify a problem. I was involved in monitoring some practice, and to show a paper trail of doing so I had to log paperwork evidence with the council. The council was predictably doing its utmost to "lose" the log. I went through three levels of complaint without success. At each stage they insisted I was not following logging procedure, each time coming up with different elaborate and complex methods. As each stage of complaint was independent of previous, no notice was taken of the change in method, or its absurdity. I eventually took my case to the ombudsman and lost.

According to the ombudsman, however disgraceful things appeared, there was nothing sdet down about procedure that the council could be held to task for.

To you and I who can get fined for accidentally dropping a buit of paper, or ridiculous parking offences, without any real hope of a reprieve, it comes as a shock to find that most councils are immune from prosecution because very little is set down about what they can and cannot do. However dishonest and even shockingly corrupt things may appear, legally they have to have contravened a law or legal procedure, and the sad fact is there's very litle they can be held to account for.

So suing them, besides the fact they can get very good lawyers, and put big restrictions on what your legal defence can do, you are almost invariably doomed to lose your case.

The answer apparently is democracy. We are supposed to vote out bad councils, even when they have an overwhelming majority. Trouble is its not entirely down to the politicians. Most iof the problem is the truly appalling lack of regulation of local government civil servants, the grosss lack of standards and accountability, and the shame that if you manage to get one of them sacked their contract guarantees them a massive compensation payout at the ratepayers expence.

We are very badly served in this country by local government.

How is forcing your local council to divert money into fighting a court case going to help in these times of austerity and budget cuts, autismtwo?

I think the answer is too sue them under the Autism Act and Discrimination Act. It is the only way forward, because it is just lip service on the ground. I wonder,  if there is a test case ?

NAS I wish to sue my local council, under the grounds of discrimination and neglect. Please Advise.

No easy answer I fear. If you think about it, in most local authorities the main active autuism representation comes from parents groups. They are mostly concerned about children (even though there are older ones reaching or into adulthood).

So the prevalence of children-only action groups tends to reinforce the impression it is something you grow out of.

There isn't much local level adult autism lobbying power.

Government sets the mandate via parlimentary Acts etc too councils. So, the council and governments are one of the same mandated system. Anyway, what is the answer to this problem ?

Depends though.....if Government has acted cynically in leaving it open to interpretation, councils will simply oblige by taking the easy way out. A lot of what happens locally is down to what messages national government sends out.

Are the NAS involved in this governmental con !

This I'm afraid is widespread. As I said recently on another discussion I've just moved from a county like that to another council like that. My old council publiicised that it was one of the first to set up an autism partnership board. What turned out to be the case was they were going to include autism on the Learning Disability Partnership Board, ONLY if persons on the autistic spectrum had a recognised learning disability. Hence there's no representation possible if you've just got autism.

I'm afraid its a widespread cop out. The Government allowed local authorities to use an existing learning disability partnership board, with the implication presumably that they would then include a provision for autism on that board. Because it has been vaguely specified a number of local authorities continue to make no specific provision for autism, which defeats the purpose of the whole campaign.

And as you say they all boast they have provisions up to transition, because as we all know, autism is something you grow out of (well that's what lots or organisations keep saying) so there's no need for an adult autism provision.