Local Government Ombudsman

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Dunraven School, Streatham (05B06021 + 2 others)

School admissions                     Maladministration causing injustice

30 March 2006

‘Mrs Tudor’, ‘Mrs Stuart’ and ‘Mr Hanover’ (not their real names for legal reasons) complained that education admissions panels failed to consider properly the reasons they put forward for requesting places for their children at Dunraven School. Mrs Tudor and Mr Hanover believed that the school’s distance criterion was not applied properly in their cases and, if it had been, their children would have been allocated places and so would not have needed to go to appeal.

The Ombudsman concluded that none of the children had been wrongly denied a place at the allocations stage. He was satisfied that the complainants had been able to raise their concerns at the appeal hearings and that those concerns were properly considered.

While he identified a number of administrative shortcomings in the school’s appeals procedure, he did not conclude that the process was so flawed that fresh appeals were required. However, he found that the complainants had suffered injustice from a justifiable sense of outrage.

The Ombudsman found maladministration causing injustice and recommended that the Governors of Dunraven School should review their arrangements for handling appeals so that in future those procedures comply with the statutory Code of Practice. In particular, attention should be given to the following areas:

  • information that is provided to parents about the appeals process;
  • timing of appeal hearings;
  • information that is provided to parents about the school’s case and the reasons for not offering a particular child a place at the school;
  • record keeping of the appeal hearings and panels’ deliberations;
  • the content of decision letters following appeals; and
  • the independent clerking of appeal panels.

The Governors indicated that the procedural issues highlighted during the Ombudsman’s investigation had been noted and that the required adjustments were being put in place for future appeals.

Date Updated: 27/04/09