Summary: The Ombudsman will not consider the complaint about the refusal of admission to the complainant’s preferred school for her child. This is because there is no evidence of fault in the way the Independent Appeal Panel (IAP) hearing the appeal made its decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mrs Q, says that the IAP did not consider her appeal properly because it did not fully consider the main part of her case: that the Council should not have withdrawn the place originally offered.

Back to top

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)
3. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe it is unlikely we would find fault. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information provided by Mrs Q and by the Council. I have also sent Mrs Q a draft decision for her comments.

Back to top

What I found

5. Mrs Q lives in the London Borough of Newham, but applied for a school place for her son in the neighbouring borough of Redbridge. She applied using the online portal.
6. Mrs Q’s son passed the admission test, and was offered a place at her preferred school for September 2019.
7. However in August 2019, the Council questioned the address that Mrs Q has given. It checked the documents she had provided, and made three unannounced visits to the address. It said that there was insufficient evidence of that being Mrs Q’s address, and withdrew the offer of a place.
8. Mrs Q appealed. She said that she applied online and didn’t see the Council’s admissions booklet. She says that she provided the documents that were required, and later rang the Council to confirm that nothing more was needed. She felt that if the evidence provided was insufficient, the Council should have told her before the deadline for applications so that she could supplement it. Mrs Q also complained about the Council’s refusal to accept her reasons for not being at home when the visits were made.
9. The Council said that it is up to applicants to look at the information provided online about the evidence needed, and to provide documentation showing that they lived at the given address at the time of the application. It does not routinely check the validity of addresses given by admissions applicants, but investigates if it is given reason to suspect an address may be fraudulent. This is what happened in this case. It accepted the address as genuine because it had no reason not to do so. Later on, when the Council was given information suggesting that the given address was not truthful, it investigated, and concluded that Mrs Q had not provided adequate evidence to show that the address was valid.
10. The IAP considered the information carefully, and questioned the events and documents at length. However, its final decision was that it was satisfied that the Council had followed its procedures correctly, and that Mrs Q had not provided evidence to the Council to show that the address given at the time of the application was correct.
11. We cannot challenge the merits of a decision that has been properly taken, so I will not investigate the complaint.

Back to top

Final decision

12. I will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is no evidence of fault in the way the IAP made its decision to refuse the appeal.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman