Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the refusal of admission to the complainant’s preferred school for his daughter. This is because there is no evidence of fault in the way the Independent Appeal Panel hearing the appeal made its decision. Additionally no injustice has been caused by the School in its handling of the complainant’s additional information.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mr C, says that following his daughter’s refusal of admission to the School:
• The School did not treat new information about her Jewish status as a material change of circumstances meriting a fresh application, as it should have done under its admission policy; and
• The IAP considering the appeal did not take the new information into account in making its decision not to uphold the appeal.

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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’. 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, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by Mr C and by the School. I have also sent Mr C a draft decision for his comments.

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What I found

4. Mr C applied for a place at his preferred school for his daughter for September 2020. The application was considered under category six of the oversubscription citeria. This is the lowest category, for children who are not Jewish. As Mr C is Jewish but his wife is Catholic, their daughter is not considered Jewish under Jewish law.
5. The application was refused as the last place offered was to a child in category five.
6. Following a determination by a rabbi that D could be considered to be Jewish due to her observance of the Jewish faith, Mr C asked the School to review her category and consider her application under category two, for Jewish children.
7. The School offered an appeal. The IAP however rejected the appeal. Mr C was not happy with the rejection, as he said that the IAP did not consider his new information.
8. There is, however, no fault in the way the IAP made its determination, as this was an appeal held under the regulations applying to the Infant Class Sizes legislation. The IAP could only consider whether the original application was properly considered and had no discretion to consider the new information.
9. Mr C complained to the School, as he felt that it should have treated his new information as a material change of circumstances, meriting a fresh application during the same year, as prescribed in its Admissions Policy.
10. The School did not uphold the complaint, but suggested that Mr C could make a fresh application during the next academic year.
11. Mr C has brought the complaint to the Ombudsman, but we will not investigate it.
12. Although I take the view that the School could have looked at Mr C’s new information, and made a determination on whether it accepted that D should be moved to category two, I do not consider that its refusal to do so caused Mr C a significant injustice. This is because even if he had been able to make a fresh application, it would have been late and so would not have resulted in the offer of a place for D.

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Final decision

13. I will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is no evidence of fault in the way that the IAP made its decision, and no injustice caused by the School’s handling of the application.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman