Summary: Mr K complained the Council wrongly measured the distance from his home to his nearest primary school when it refused his child a place at the school. We found fault agreeing this to be the case and finding an independent education appeal panel failed to correct the decision on appeal. The Council agreed to make a place available at the school for Mr K’s child which remedied the injustice caused by its error.

The complaint

1. I have called the complainant ‘Mr K’. He complained that when it refused his child ‘L’ a place in the reception class at his nearest primary school, the Council had wrongly measured the distance from his home address to the school. He complained an independent school admission appeal panel did not correct this. Instead it upheld the Council’s decision.
2. Mr K said as a result L could not attend her nearest primary school which was the family’s first preference. She had to attend a school further away, with a walking route Mr K considered unsafe.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a decision taken by a Council or an independent school admissions appeals panel 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), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with a 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. Before issuing my decision on this complaint I considered:

• Mr K’s written complaint to the Ombudsman and supporting information he provided, including in a telephone conversation.
• The papers forming Mr K’s appeal against the Council’s decision refusing L a place in the reception class of the nearest primary school. This included Mr K’s application and papers presented to the appeal and the Council’s case to the appeal. It also included the minutes of the appeal hearing, including the Panel’s discussion and its decision letter.
• Relevant law and guidance as referred to below.

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What I found

6. Mr K applied for his child L to join the reception class of his nearest primary school for September 2019 admission.
7. The Council refused L’s application. It did so based on its admission policy. This said that if it had more applications than places at the school it would allocate them to pupils living closest to the school. It measured this by taking home to school distance “from the front door of the applicant’s house to the front gate of the school”.
8. The Council gave the last place at the school to a child living around 0.4 miles away. L’s application failed because the Council measured the home to school distance as 0.03 miles longer than this last successful application. Mr K appealed the decision. He gave several reasons for his appeal including the closeness of his home to the school.
9. The Council uses computer software mapping to measure distance. This in turn uses ordinance survey data. As part of its presentation to the Mr K’s appeal the Council included a copy of how its software measured L’s ‘home to school’ route. This showed an incomplete picture of Mr K’s road. It also showed the route mapped from the rear of the home and not the front. The route followed a footpath behind Mr K’s home resulting in a longer route than leaving from the front door. As part of his presentation to the appeal Mr K showed there is no access from his garden to the path behind. He also provided maps showing the shorter walking route from the front door.
10. In reply to our enquiries the Council agreed to remeasure the home to school route from Mr K’s front door. It found the correct measurement was less than 0.4 miles. It offered L a place at the school in recognition of the mistake and to remedy the complaint. It has also corrected the error on its map.
11. But this was only after Mr K’s appeal hearing. The appeal had upheld the Council’s decision not to offer L a place at the school.

My findings

12. The Council was at fault in this case for how it first measured the home to school distance from Mr K’s home. This caused injustice as it would have offered L a place at the school but for the error.
13. I consider the appeal panel should have spotted the error. Independent school admission appeal panels must follow the law when considering appeals for infant classes. The law says infant class sizes must not exceed 30 pupils per teacher, with only limited exceptions. Consequently, there are special rules governing appeals for Reception and Years 1 and 2. Appeals under these rules are known as ‘infant class size appeals’.
14. These say appeal panels must check whether:

• admitting another child would breach the class size limit;
• the school admission arrangements comply with the law: and
• the admission arrangements were properly applied to the case:

15. Only if all these tests are met should the Panel then consider if the decision to refuse a place was one which a reasonable authority would have made in the circumstances. The Panel decided that Mr K’s case did not meet this stiff test, after considering his other grounds of appeal.
16. But the appeal should not have reached consideration of that point. The Panel evidently failed to spot the Council’s error in not applying its admission arrangements correctly to L’s application. This was despite having the Council’s map showing the error and Mr K’s maps and photographs.
17. It is unfortunate the error was not picked up at appeal. I consider the Panel became side-tracked considering Mr K’s other grounds of appeal. I also think it unfortunate the Council did not pick up its own error when Mr K attended the appeal. However, the Council has now been remedied the fault. I credit it for carrying out the remeasurement quickly when asked and offering a place to L afterward within 24 hours. This remedies the injustice caused to Mr K by the original mistake. It provides a fair outcome to his complaint.

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Final decision

18. For reasons set out above the Council was at fault when it wrongly refused Mr K’s child a place at their nearest primary school. This caused injustice as the decision denied the child a place at the school. The fault and injustice were compounded by an independent education admission appeal panel failing to overturn the decision on appeal. But the injustice is now remedied by the Council’s actions during this investigation, meaning I can complete my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman