Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr A’s complaint that the Council’s school admission appeal panel was at fault in refusing his application for a school place for his son. It is unlikely we would find fault on the Council’s part.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Mr A, complains that the Council’s school admission appeal panel was at fault in refusing his appeal for a school place for his son.

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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 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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered what Mr A has said in support of his complaint and the appeal documents provided by the Council.

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What I found

4. Mr A applied for a school place for his son for admission to the Reception year group in September 2019. The Council allocated his son a place at Mr A’s first-choice school.
5. Mr A also obtained a school place for his daughter at another school. He then changed his preference of school for his son to the same school as his daughter. However, as all the Reception places at this school had been allocated, the Council refused the application.
6. Mr A appealed against the Council’s decision and attended the appeal hearing to make his case in person. He set out why he wanted the children to attend the same school and explained the difficulties an adverse decision would cause for his family.
7. The school admission appeal panel refused Mr A’s appeal. Mr A believes the panel was at fault in that it failed to give sufficient weight to the difficulty of having two children at different schools.
8. Independent school admission appeals panels must follow the law when considering an appeal. The law says the size of an infant class must not be more than 30 pupils per teacher. There are only limited circumstances in which more than 30 children can be admitted. There are special rules governing appeals for Reception and Years 1 and 2. Appeals under these rules are known as “infant class size appeals”. The rules say the panel must consider whether:
    

• admitting another child would breach the class size limit;
• the admission arrangements comply with the law:
• the admission arrangements were properly applied to the case:
• the decision to refuse a place was one which a reasonable authority would have made in the circumstances.

9. What is ‘unreasonable’ is a high test. The panel needs to be sure that to refuse a place was “perverse” or “outrageous”. For that reason, panels rarely find an admission authority’s decision to be unreasonable.
10. The Ombudsman does not question the merits of decisions properly taken. The panel is entitled to come to its own judgment about the evidence it hears.
11. The clerk’s notes of Mr A’s hearing show that Mr A was able to make his case to the panel. The weight the panel members gave to his arguments was a matter for them, not the Ombudsman. There is no indication of fault in the way the panel considered the questions before it. That being the case, the Ombudsman cannot criticise the panel’s decision or intervene to substitute an alternative view.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is unlikely we would find fault on the Council’s part.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman