North Yorkshire County Council & Ermysteds Grammar School, Skipton (08 006 687 + 1 other)

School admissions                     No maladministration

18 March 2009

The Ombudsman issued a report to “…alert parents with children transferring to secondary school in 2010 to the importance of inspecting the arrangements – to be published by 15 April 2009 – and deciding whether to exercise their right to object to the Schools Adjudicator.”

She issued her report on complaints made about the 2008 admission arrangements for selective schools in the Skipton area of North Yorkshire and the County Council’s alleged failure to comply with a determination of the Schools Adjudicator, to highlight important points to help parents understand what their complaint options are if they are aggrieved by a school admission decision in 2009; in particular, the types of complaint that the Local Government Ombudsman and the Schools Adjudicator can, respectively, consider.

At the heart of the complaints was a difference in the test marks needed for a child to be considered for a Grammar School place in Skipton and in Ripon. The mark was set at the mark achieved by the 28th percentile score of the children living in the respective, selective areas and was higher in Skipton than in Ripon. The Ombudsman did not find that either the County Council or the Schools had acted with maladministration or had caused an injustice to the parents who complained.

The law* says that the Ombudsman should not investigate any matter if the person affected has the right to go to a tribunal, unless it would not be reasonable to expect the person to have used that right. The Schools Adjudicator has the power to consider objections to school admission arrangements and is defined as a tribunal. Some parents in the area had objected to the Schools Adjudicator. The Ombudsman decided that she could not investigate complaints that the admission arrangements were “unfair'”. She found no maladministration or injustice on the other issues.

The Ombudsman is sending copies of her report to all primary schools in the two selective areas, and the Council and Schools have been asked to make it available on their websites.

Date Published: 23/03/09