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School admissions Maladministration causing injustice
29 June 2005
‘Mrs Smith’ (not her real name for legal reasons) complained that there were faults in the Council’s handling of an appeal against refusal of a place for her daughter at her preferred infant school. After her appeal was heard her solicitor wrote to the Council arguing that there were procedural faults in the appeal. The Council offered her, and all the other appellants, a second appeal. She was successful. She asked the Council to meet her legal costs. The Council refused so she complained to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman considered that the Council had confused the issues of its own funding of teacher places in infant schools and infant class size prejudice. This was clearly not an infant class size appeal as there would not be more than 30 children in the class were the appeal to be allowed. This meant that the first appeal should not have been considered as an infant class size prejudice appeal but an ordinary appeal. Had it been, it is reasonable to conclude that Mrs Smith would have won. She was therefore put to the unnecessary worry and time and trouble of a second appeal.
The Ombudsman finds maladministration causing injustice and the Council has agreed to pay Mrs Smith £1,250.
Date Published: 11/05/09
are in .pdf format. To view these files you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. It can be downloaded below free of charge. Click To Download