(In)appropriate Local Authority attendance at the Annual Review

My daughter’s EHCP Annual Review (AR) takes place one week today. Per the norm, the LA has been invited to attend. We’d not had an indication one way or the other if they would; our LA doesn’t usually attend. Today, her college received a phone call from the caseworker saying that they would / could not attend, but their superior would (we do not know yet if this is virtual or in person).
The named person they propose was the lead and very adversarial protagonist on the LA’s behalf for a Lower Tribunal hearing (which we ‘won’), a subsequent appeal (which was also won), and then made an LA appeal to the Upper Tribunal, which we again won, which resulted in the (very successful) placement at the current college.
My questions are:
1) Is it permissible that an LA representative be substituted at this late stage and can we ask for an alternative person?
2) Can we request that the LA does not allow this person to be involved in our daughter’s AR, or indeed any aspect of her ongoing engagement with the LA SENAT?
We feel threatened and intimidated by the named person’s involvement because:
a) their extremely adversarial approach to the tribunals caused a lot of pain, distress, delays and expense – both to us, and to the public purse.
b) their various submissions and representations were found to be at best irregular, at their base level they were incorrect and manipulative, which the judge(s) concurred with (in other words, they were not faithful and truthful, but this is of course tricky territory).
c) we believe they are very prejudiced against us as a family.
d) my daughter is vulnerable and is still scarred by the tribunal process and we do not want this person to have any contact with her.
Thank you in advance for any guidance at this difficult moment, served on us at very short notice.

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Is the SENCo accountable for amending the EHC plan after an annual review meeting?

We have an upcoming Annual Review meeting scheduled in the next few days and recently received an email from the SENCo outlining the roles and expectations for the review.

The email states:
"As [my son's] SENCo, I will edit the EHCP after the review and make amendments where necessary."

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Shouldn't it be the LA, rather than the SENCo, making changes to my son's EHCP?