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Named and Shamed Merton Local Authority

Paull

Merton local authority have done practically nothing to comply with the Autism Act, there is still no team of people or a named manager responsible for the commissioning of services to adults with autism.

They have just done one or two very very very minor things to make out they are in the process of complying with the law.

They force you to go through the wrong channel - eg learning disability/mental health and obviously the people here are not trained and have no experience or qualifications in assessing the needs of those with austism so how can they make a correct assessment ? Their wrong assessment is just a way to fob you off and wriggle out of the responsiblities placed upon them by law.

Now they have not even responded to my complaints after 26 days so I have contacted the local government ombudsman.

No doubt they are going to come up with another brick wall, am guessing that they will say I need to challenge them through the law, obviously I have no money for that and we all know that obviously NAS conveniently doesn't bite the hand that feeds them.

"Unfortunately, the NAS does not have its own in-house legal department and cannot give specific legal information and/or advice to service users or members of the public." -really !!!

If anything this would be the most important, number one priority to anyone with autism who is having trouble getting anywhere with their local authority.

Parents

  • I've been through this with the local authority I was in, until I moved away in December. They actually claimed when NAS produced that map of Council responses a year or so back, that they had appointed a lead officer and set up a partnership board, making them appear one of the most forward thinking councils.

    But at the last review all they had was an arrangement on their learning disability partnership board, whereby IF someone with a learning disability also had autism, they'd take the autism into account. On that basis they claimed their procurement officer for learning disability was also an autism procurement officer.

    Between those events I had a long and fruitless exchange trying to see if I could get on the autism partnership board, when their argument, that eventually emerged, that they wouldn't let me on their expanded learning disability partnership board UNLESS I was learning disabled!

    The fact they got through the last review shows how woolly and meaningless is the whole Autism Act and "Leading Rewarding and Fulfilling Lives" process. I did convey to NAS Campaigns the difficulties I was having but they seemed to have little they could do and were asking me to appreciate the tiny shifts.

    In the local authority where I'm currently living, more is happening now, but it was only recently they started. We just have to hope the current review has teeth, and true grit.

    The tragedy is the appalling state of local government, and sadly National Government has put the onus for implementation on a system that is outmoded, inept and financially irresponsible. Local Government in this country is a dinosaur.

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  • I've been through this with the local authority I was in, until I moved away in December. They actually claimed when NAS produced that map of Council responses a year or so back, that they had appointed a lead officer and set up a partnership board, making them appear one of the most forward thinking councils.

    But at the last review all they had was an arrangement on their learning disability partnership board, whereby IF someone with a learning disability also had autism, they'd take the autism into account. On that basis they claimed their procurement officer for learning disability was also an autism procurement officer.

    Between those events I had a long and fruitless exchange trying to see if I could get on the autism partnership board, when their argument, that eventually emerged, that they wouldn't let me on their expanded learning disability partnership board UNLESS I was learning disabled!

    The fact they got through the last review shows how woolly and meaningless is the whole Autism Act and "Leading Rewarding and Fulfilling Lives" process. I did convey to NAS Campaigns the difficulties I was having but they seemed to have little they could do and were asking me to appreciate the tiny shifts.

    In the local authority where I'm currently living, more is happening now, but it was only recently they started. We just have to hope the current review has teeth, and true grit.

    The tragedy is the appalling state of local government, and sadly National Government has put the onus for implementation on a system that is outmoded, inept and financially irresponsible. Local Government in this country is a dinosaur.

Children
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