Summary: the admission authority’s written statement for the admission appeal did not include relevant information about the home to school distance of children who were offered places. However, this fault did not cause injustice to Miss X because it would not have changed the Independent Appeal Panel’s decision to refuse her appeal.

The complaint

1. I shall refer to the complainant as “Miss X”, and to her son as “Y”, in this statement. Miss X complains about the way the Independent Appeals Panel for St Peter’s Roman Catholic High School considered her Year 7 admission appeal for Y.
2. Miss X says the Panel kept interrupting the school’s presenting officer and did not give her time to answer his questions. She did not submit a baptism certificate for Y when she completed the secondary school application form. She provided a letter and his baptism certificate at the appeal hearing.
3. She says it is important to her that her son attends a faith school. She has not accepted the secondary school allocated by the local Council. Her son has no school place for September.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 an independent school admissions appeals 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. If we find fault, which calls into question the panel’s decision, we may ask for a new appeal hearing. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with the appeal panel’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)

How I considered this complaint

6. I considered Miss X’s complaint about the appeal hearing and her response to my enquiries.
7. I have taken account of Miss X’s online application form and all the appeal papers and evidence. This includes the evidence she provided to the Panel about her son’s baptism along with the Clerk’s notes of the hearing.
8. I gave the Council and Miss X the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

9. Parents have the right to appeal against an admission authority’s decision to refuse admission. As St Peter’s RC High School is a voluntary aided school, it is the admissions authority and arranges for an independent appeal panel to hear appeals.
10. The admission authority must:
• explain its reasons for refusing admission, tell parents about the right of appeal, and the process for hearing appeals;
• appoint a clerk who is independent of the school and the education functions of the local authority; and,
• appoint an independent appeal panel to hear admission appeals (or the clerk can do this for the admission authority).

11. The admission authority must provide a presenting officer at the appeal hearing to present the decision not to admit the child and answer questions about the school’s case. Appeal panels must give appellants the opportunity to appear in person and present their case.
12. Independent appeal panels must consider whether:

• the admission arrangements comply with the law;
• the admission arrangements were properly applied to the case;
• whether admitting another child to the school would prejudice the education of others.

If the panel finds there would be prejudice, it must then consider each appellant’s individual arguments. If the panel decides the appellant’s case outweighs the prejudice to the school, it must uphold the appeal.

13. The Ombudsman does not question the merits of a decision that has been properly taken. The Panel is entitled to come to its own judgment about the evidence it hears.

What happened

14. Y is due to start secondary school in September 2019.
15. He attended a Roman Catholic primary school until July 2019.
16. St Peter’s RC High School received 612 applications for admission to Year 7 in September 2019. Its published admissions number for Year 7 was 200 places. As the school was heavily over-subscribed, the governing body had to allocate places by following the order of priority set out in the school’s published admissions policy.
17. The admissions criteria were applied in the following order:
• Category 1 – a child who is, or was, in local authority care (a “looked after” child) and who is a Roman Catholic;
• Category 2 – Roman Catholic children who attend one of nine named Roman Catholic primary schools (not including the school Y attended);
• Category 3 – Roman Catholic children who live in one of 12 listed parishes;
• Category 4 – other Roman Catholic children;
• Category 5 – looked after children who are not Roman Catholic;
• Category 6 – non-Roman Catholic children who attend one of the nine Roman Catholic primary schools listed in Category 2;
• Category 7 – other non-Roman Catholic children.
18. The admissions policy explains that to be considered a Roman Catholic, the parent must provide evidence confirming the child has been baptised into the RC faith.
19. If there are more applications than places available within each of the seven categories, the school uses the distance between the child’s home and the school as a tie-breaker. It uses the Council’s computerised system for measuring distances. Priority is given to those children who live closest to the school.

Miss X’s application

20. In mid-September 2018 Miss X completed the local Council’s online secondary school application form. She expressed a preference for three schools: St Peter’s RC High School was her first choice. Her second preference was a Church of England school and her third was an academy.
21. Miss X stated that Y had attended a faith school since he was in nursery. She wanted him to continue to develop his religious faith and knowledge. She did not provide any supporting evidence about Y’s baptism when she made the application.
22. The school considered Miss X’s application under Category 7: non-Roman Catholic children. It offered 22 places to children under this category. It used the home to school distance as a tie-breaker to decide which children should be offered places.
23. The final place offered under Category 7 went to a child who lived 1.97 miles from the school. Miss X and Y live 3.5 miles from the school.
24. In March 2019 the school informed Miss X her application was unsuccessful. The Council offered Y a place at his local high school. Miss X had not expressed a preference for this school.
25. In early March 2019 Miss X appealed against the decision to refuse Y a place. She said Y had not been baptised into the Roman Catholic faith. But he was attending a Catholic primary school and she wanted him to attend a faith secondary school. She is a single parent with no family members nearby. She needed support from friends whose children would attend her first and second preference secondary schools. She was very concerned about high crime levels where she lived and the poor behaviour of pupils at the local high school.
26. In April 2019 the Headteacher of St Peter’s RC High School acknowledged her appeal. He explained the school could not admit any more pupils to Year 7. He told her Y was in 125th place on the waiting list.
27. Miss X attended the appeal hearing on 23 May. The Headteacher attended as the presenting officer for the school.
28. Before the hearing, the school sent Miss X a written statement explaining the admissions policy and how the school had allocated the 200 places in Year 7 to the 612 applicants. It said the school was popular and over-subscribed and was operating at full capacity. It explained the school could refuse to meet the parent’s preference if it could show the admission of more children would cause prejudice to efficient education and the efficient use of resources in the school.
29. The statement said the school had offered 22 places to children in Category 7. It did not give details of the home to school distance of the last child offered a place under Category 7, or the distance from Miss X’s home to the school.
30. In the morning, the Panel held a group hearing with all parents present. In this part of the hearing the Panel considered the school’s case that it would cause prejudice to efficient education or the efficient use of resources to admit more children. Some parents put questions to the Headteacher about the school’s admissions arrangements and how they had been applied. According to the Clerk’s notes, one of these questions was about the home to school distance criterion.
31. The Panel accepted the school’s case that the admission of additional children would prejudice the provision of efficient education because the year group was full.
32. The Panel heard Miss X’s appeal in an individual hearing that afternoon. She explained she wanted Y to attend a faith school. She said she lived in an area with a high crime rate and did not want Y to go to the local high school. Y’s friends had been offered places at St Peter’s.
33. She gave the Panel a letter from a priest confirming that Y had been raised and baptised into a Christian orthodox faith. The baptism took place in a Catholic church. In Miss X’s opinion, there was little difference between the two faiths.
34. The Panel adjourned the hearing until the next morning to give Miss X time to produce Y’s baptism certificate. It confirmed Y had been baptised as a baby into the orthodox Christian faith. The Panel decided Y had not been baptised into the Roman Catholic faith, although the service was held in a Catholic church.
35. The Panel also decided Miss X had not put forward any exceptional social or medical factors that would outweigh the prejudice to the school if it upheld the appeal.
36. The three members of the Panel voted unanimously to refuse Miss X’s appeal. The Panel decided:
• The school’s admission arrangements complied with the School Admissions Code, were lawful and had been correctly and impartially applied;
• Miss X had not presented evidence of any exceptional medical or social circumstances that would outweigh the prejudice caused by the admission of another child to the school.
37. The Clerk wrote to Miss X on 24 May to inform her of the Panel’s decision. She sent a more detailed letter on 25 June to explain the reasons.

Analysis

38. Miss X has strong religious convictions and feels it is unfair that Y was refused a place at her preferred faith school. She refused the secondary school the Council has offered instead.
39. St Peter’s RC High School received more than three times the number of applications for the 200 places available in Year 7. It therefore had to refuse many applications and this left many parents disappointed.
40. The Ombudsman’s role is to decide if there was fault in the way the Independent Appeal Panel considered Miss X’s appeal. If there was fault, we must then consider if that was significant and affected the outcome of the appeal. If we find no fault, we cannot uphold a complaint simply because the parent is disappointed by the Panel’s decision.
41. I have read the Clerk’s notes of the appeal hearing for the group stage and Miss X’s individual hearing. There is no requirement for Clerks to record everything that is said in an appeal hearing. They take brief notes to record the key points the appellant raises in the appeal, any questions put by the Panel, the evidence considered and make a record of the Panel’s vote and decision. This means the evidence is rather limited. There is nothing in the notes indicating that the Panel interrupted the Headteacher (who was the presenting officer for the school) or prevented Miss X from answering his questions. The Clerk is responsible for overseeing the proper conduct of appeal hearings and should have intervened if she had any concerns. There is no evidence for me to find fault in the way the hearing was conducted.
42. One of the key issues the Panel had to decide was whether Y’s application was considered under the correct category in the school’s published admissions criteria. The criteria give higher priority to children who are baptised Roman Catholics, and those who attend named primary schools. The Panel adjourned the appeal hearing to give Miss X time to produce Y’s baptism certificate. That was the right way to proceed because this evidence was important. After considering the priest’s letter and the baptism certificate, the Panel found Y was not a baptised Roman Catholic. He did not attend one of the listed Roman Catholic primary schools so could not be considered under Category 6. The Panel therefore found his application was correctly considered under Category 7. I see no evidence of fault in the way the Panel considered the evidence and reached this decision.
43. 22 children were offered places under Category 7. The tie-breaker was the distance between their homes and the school. The school says information about home to school distance for these 22 offers was presented on the day of the appeal in the group hearing. I consider the written statement sent to Miss X before the appeal hearing should have included this information. It should have stated the distance of the last child offered a place under Category 7, and the distance between Miss X’s home and the school. Other appellants should have received similar information before their appeal hearings.
44. In coming to this view, I took into account paragraph 2.9 of the School Admissions Appeal Code. It says the admission authority must supply the Clerk with documents which include information about the admission arrangements and how they were applied in the appellant’s case. Paragraph 2.10 of the Code says these papers must be sent to the appellant in reasonable time before the day of the appeal hearing. In my view, the details of how the school applied the home to school distance tie-breaker comes within the scope of this provision.
45. During this investigation, I asked the school for information about home to school distance for the places offered under Category 7. It told me the child offered the final place under Category 7 lived 1.97 miles from the school. Miss X and Y live 3.5 miles from the school. So Y lived too far from the school to get an offer.
46. This evidence supports the Panel’s decision that the admissions criteria were properly applied in Y’s case.
47. I see no evidence of fault in the way the Panel considered the school’s case on “prejudice” and Miss X’s reasons for seeking a place for Y at this school.

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Final decision

48. I have completed the investigation and found it was fault not to include details about the home to school distance in the written statement sent to Miss X before the appeal. However, this fault did not cause injustice. Y did not qualify for a place under the home to school distance criterion and so the omission of this information did not affect the outcome of the appeal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman