Summary: Mr X complained about the way the School’s admission appeal panel handled his appeal for a place for his child at the School. The Ombudsman does not find fault with the way the panel reached its decision to refuse the appeal but does find fault with the way the panel explained the decision in its letter to Mr X. The School will ensure Mr X now receives a complete decision letter with an apology.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the way the School’s admission appeal panel handled his appeal for a place for his child at the School. The panel refused the appeal and Mr X is not happy for his child to attend another school.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. We cannot question whether a school admission appeal panel’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider if there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3))
4. If we are satisfied with a school's or council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered information from:
• Mr X’s complaint and from telephone conversations with him;
• a telephone conversation with Mr X’s representative;
• Redcar and Cleveland Council (the Council) which administered the admissions procedure and provided the clerking service for the School’s admission appeals panel. This included a telephone conversation with a Council officer.
6. I gave Mr X, the School and the Council an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision. I have considered the comments received before making this final decision.

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What I found

7. Mr X lives with two children close to the School and inside the School’s admission zone. Y’s older sibling will be at the School in September 2019.
8. The School is a foundation school and its own admissions authority.

The Council’s Guide for Parents for Secondary Education in Redcar and Cleveland

The school application arrangements

9. The Guide sets out the Council’s arrangements for transferring children to secondary school. The Council also produces a much shorter, paper guide which it sends to parents in August. Both guides said the deadline for secondary school applications was 31 October 2018.
10. The Guide says:

“If your application is late, you may miss out on your chance of getting your child a place in a school of your preference. This applies even if you live in the admission zone for the school, or you have another child attending the school in the 2019/2020 school year.”

11. It also says:

“applications received after the closing date will be considered after those that were received on time”.

The School’s admissions criteria

12. The Guide sets out the admissions criteria for Laurence Jackson School. The School gives second highest priority to children permanently resident in its admission zone.

The Council’s school admissions procedure

13. In August 2018 the Council sent Mr X a letter which explained he must apply for a secondary school place for Y to start in September 2019. It enclosed a copy of the Council’s shorter guide for parents. The letter said the closing date for applications was 31 October 2018. It stressed it was very important to apply by that date. It said a late application or no statement of school preference might mean his child would not get a place at his preferred school. The letter explained parents could apply online or using a paper form.
14. There is no requirement for councils to remind parents to submit school application forms on time. However, a Council officer has explained that during October, before the deadline, the Council does have a system for reminding parents who have not yet submitted an application form. The Council generates letters for those parents from its list of applications outstanding. At the beginning of October letters go to the child’s school for the child to take home. If it has not received a form two weeks before the deadline the Council posts another letter to the parent’s address. The second letter includes a paper application form. The Council has no records of what letters it sent out under the reminder system.
15. The Council only has a record of receiving one application form from Mr X. It is a paper application form, completed on 6 December 2018. The Council received the form on 7 December 2018. The form only expressed one preference, for Laurence Jackson School. Mr X has no proof of sending an original form in on time. But he says he thinks he did and that the form he sent in December was the second one. He says he received no reminders from the Council before the application deadline.
16. The Council allocated places to the School according to the published admissions criteria. It allocated the 250 places available from applicants who had applied on time and expressed a preference for the School. Of these it allocated three places to children under its highest admission criterion then 158 places to children permanently resident in the School’s admission zone. It then allocated the remaining places to children with less priority, including children outside the admissions zone.
17. When the Council came to Mr X’s late application there were no places left at the School. Mr X had not stated any other preferences for consideration. The Council allocated a place for Y at the closest school which had places available, School B.
18. On 1 March 2019 the Council wrote to Mr X and said it had allocated a place for Y at School B. This was a standard letter which said the Council had not been able to allocate a place at any of Mr X’s preferred schools because other children had higher priority under the oversubscription criteria. Mr X says it was only after receiving this letter that he realised his application had been treated as late.

Mr X’s appeal

19. Mr X appealed against the decision to refuse a place for Y at Laurence Jackson School. The School set up an independent appeal panel to hear Mr X’s and other appeals. The Council clerked the appeals on behalf of the School. The Council sent a letter to Mr X explaining there would be a group hearing for all parents and then individual hearings would follow. The letter stressed that if he wanted to rely on further documentary evidence to support his appeal he should ensure the clerk had it beforehand or bring it with him.

The appeals process

20. Appeal panels must follow the law when considering an appeal for a secondary school place. The panel must consider whether:
• the admission arrangements comply with the law; and
• the admission arrangements were properly applied to the child in question.
21. The panel must then consider whether admitting another child would prejudice the education of others. If the panel find there would be prejudice it must then consider the appellant’s arguments. If the panel decides the appellant’s case outweighs the prejudice to the school, it must uphold the appeal.
22. The Ombudsman does not question the merits of decisions taken properly. The panel is entitled to come to its own judgment about the evidence it hears.

The group hearing

23. Before parents had their individual hearings the panel held a group hearing where it considered the School’s admission arrangements and the School’s case that admitting extra children would cause prejudice to the School. The panel considered the information the School had provided. Parents and panel members asked the School’s representatives questions about the case.
24. The panel decided the admission arrangements were lawful and had been properly applied. It decided admitting extra children would cause prejudice to the School. The panel then heard individual cases at individual hearings.

Mr X’s hearing

25. At his hearing Mr X said he had sent his form in on time but was told to fill it in again. He said he thought the Council had lost the original form. A Council officer explained the Council’s reminder process.
26. The panel prompted Mr X to expand on the situation explained in his written appeal about the difficult family circumstances Y had experienced. Mr X explained his concerns for Y if Y went to School B. He said Y needed the continued support of pupils Y knew who were going Laurence Jackson and going anywhere else would be harmful to Y.

The panel’s decision

27. The panel refused Mr X’s appeal after it had heard all the appeals for the School. The panel explained its decision in a letter sent to Mr X shortly after all the appeals had finished. The letter explained the panel’s decisions about the way the school places had been allocated and its decision that further admissions would cause prejudice at the School. It said the panel took everything Mr X had to say into consideration but omitted any details of Mr X’s case. It ended by saying the panel was not satisfied the circumstances of Mr X’s case were enough to outweigh the degree of prejudice established by the School.

Findings

28. The clerk’s notes of the group hearing and Mr X’s individual hearing show the panel members took account of the relevant issues at each stage of the appeal. They show the panel explored relevant points with Mr X in his own hearing. The panel was entitled to reach its own view, having considered the information and evidence it heard from both sides at the appeal. I do not find fault with the way it reached its decision.
29. However, there was fault in the way the panel’s decision was explained to Mr X in its decision letter. The letter was designed to include information about the points Mr X raised at the appeal but it did not include this. The omission of this information was fault by the panel, so fault by the School. The fault did not alter the panel’s decision. But, because of the fault, Mr X could not tell from the letter what the panel had considered during his own hearing.

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Agreed action

30. The School will ensure that, within four weeks of this decision, the panel clerk will reissue the panel’s decision letter, to include:
• an apology for the failure to send a complete decision letter before; and
• reference to what Mr X said at his hearing.

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Final decision

31. I have now completed my investigation because the School’s agreed action will remedy the injustice caused to Mr X by the appeal panel’s fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman