I have been struggling with my Local Authority to get some help, after many months getting nowhere I made a complaint, that got ignored so I had to complain to the Local Government Ombudsman, the crux of my complaint was that they do not even have an autism lead. Months later, my complaint was answered and to satisfy my complaint the Service Manager gave a name as the autism lead (Commissioner who is responsible for commissioning services for people with autism which they are supposed to have by law). However a while later I found the direct contact number for this person and they said that was not there job and gave another name - who is actually the head of commissioning (which means his/her portfolio is not a clear commissioning responsibility for adults with autism.)
Also the autism act says the autism lead should be made public, which again is not the case.
A few weeks later I called again (and recorded the conversation because I know they will try to wangle out of it), I asked for the person by name, they confirmed it, asked if they were the autism lead, they said no, I asked if they had ever been the autism lead, they said no, I asked who was the autism lead and they gave the name of the head of commissioning again.
I think this is quite serious because it clearly shows that not only myself, but the Local Government Ombudsman has been lied to by my local authority, obviously the purpose being to simply to satisfy my complaint.
On top of this the assessment I had was illegal. According to the autism act it is expected that "staff in roles which have a direct impact on access to services for adults with autism such as GPs, community care assessors and commissioners/service planners have received specialist autism training" and to satisfy this part of the complaint the service manager replied to my MP, 'the people who carried out the assessment have worked extensively with people with autism and so have a good understanding of the needs of people with autism'
.........seriously??? a good understanding is a world apart from 'specialist autism training'.
I have now further complained that I have been lied to, I want to know who the autism lead is, why I have been given a different name in an official document, why the autism lead is not made public, and I want to know exactly what training the assessors had at the time of the assessment, and that I want a proper assessment carried out by an occupational therapist with an understanding of sensory issues in people with an ASD, as recommended by NAS, but I doubt I will hear anything for another 3 months but if i do I will post it here.
