Summary: The Ombudsman does not have grounds to investigate this complaint from a parent about the school admission appeal panel’s decision to refuse her appeal for a place for her son at her preferred primary school. This is because there is no sign of fault in the way the panel considered the appeal.

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 provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if, for example, we believe it is unlikely we would find fault. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We cannot question whether a school admission appeal 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mrs B provided with her complaint. I also gave Mrs B an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision before I reached a final view in her case. In addition I took into account documents supplied by the Council concerning Mrs B’s appeal.

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What I found

5. Last year Mrs B applied for a school place for C in the Reception year due to start in September 2020. Mrs B listed the School as her first preference.
6. However Mrs B’s application for the School was turned down because all the places were taken by children with a higher priority than C under the Council’s oversubscription criteria. In particular the successful children either lived in the School’s Area of Prime Responsibility or lived nearer to it than C. Instead Mrs B was offered a place for C at her second preference school.
7. Mrs B appealed about the refusal of a place at the School. However the independent appeal panel turned down her appeal.

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Analysis

8. Appeal panels must follow the law when considering an appeal. In particular the law says the size of an infant class must not be more than 30 pupils per teacher, with very limited exceptions. In 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, and were properly applied to the case;
• the decision to refuse a place was one which a reasonable authority would have made in the circumstances.

What is ‘reasonable’ is a high test. To uphold an appeal on this ground the panel would need to be sure that the decision to refuse a place was “perverse” or “outrageous”. For that reason, panels in infant class appeals rarely find an admission authority’s decision to be unreasonable.

9. Mrs B’s appeal was considered under the infant class size rules because she applied for a place in a Reception class.
10. The School has a PAN of 20. At the appeal hearing the Council confirmed that all 20 places had been filled. The Council explained that after the Reception year the year groups are mixed to form classes of 30. It said, therefore, that an extra child in the Reception class would not exceed the infant class size limit this year, but the rules would be breached as the class moved up next year.
11. In the circumstances the panel agreed that taking 21 children in Reception this year would cause an infant class size breach in future years. From the records of what the Council presented to the panel about this matter I consider the panel had good reason to reach that view.

12. Mrs B’s appeal case related mainly to information she said School staff had given to parents at an open day in December 2019 that an expansion of the School was planned to take place in the 2020/2021 school year because of new building. As a result there would be capacity to take more children in Reception during the year.
13. But just before the appeals were heard, the School announced the building works had been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and it was unlikely that the PAN would be increased until September 2022.
14. In the circumstances Mrs B said it was confusing and unfair for the School to have indicated before the closing date for applications that it would exceed or change its PAN of 20 during the current school year. She said this meant the admissions arrangements when she applied were unclear and in breach of the statutory School Admissions Code.
15. Mrs B felt the panel did not give enough consideration to this matter in dealing with her case. But from the appeal clerk’s record of proceedings at the hearing and the panel’s decision making, it seems to me that panel members spent a considerable amount of time exploring the issue with Mrs B and the Council’s representative, and that it was the main topic of discussion when they came to make their decision.
16. The panel concluded that there was no evidence the School had made a commitment to accept more children, or that its PAN of 20 would be changed, during the 2020/2021 school year. The panel also noted that the Council’s published admissions information and the School’s website were consistent in showing the PAN for the year as 20.
17. I consider that the panel was reasonably entitled to take that view, and to conclude the admission arrangements were lawful and properly applied in C’s case, based on the information provided to it at the hearing.
18. Mrs B suggested the panel was misled because the Council’s representative wrongly advised that a school could not change its PAN during the school year. But I am not convinced there is evidence to suggest any significant misunderstanding by the panel in this respect. From the records of the proceedings it appears to me the panel reached the view that it was possible to change the PAN, but there was a formal process for doing so and the School had not followed that process.
19. Mrs B also felt the panel had given too much weight to the fact that C had been offered a place at her second preference school rather than focussing on her reasons for wanting C to go to the School.
20. But I am not convinced that the panel was at fault in the way it dealt with this matter. In particular I consider the alternative offer was a relevant issue for the panel, not least in looking at how any confusion over the School’s admission number impacted on Mrs B’s decisions about which schools to list as preferences, and in considering whether the outcome would have been any different if not for this confusion.
21. In her appeal case Mrs B explained she wanted C to go to the School due to its ethos and strong learning environment, and she believed she had made a compelling case for his admission. So she was understandably disappointed by the panel’s decision. However from the information provided I am not convinced there is sign of fault by the panel.
22. In particular the appeal records indicate that panel members noted and understood the main points Mrs B presented in her appeal case, and took these into account in reaching their view. In addition, it is evident that Mrs B was given a reasonable opportunity to make her case, and I note she confirmed at the end of the hearing that she had said all she wanted to say.
23. But ultimately the panel was entitled to reach its own view about the information it read and heard from both sides at the appeal. In addition, the panel had to apply the strict rules required by law concerning the size of infant classes and, in effect, this meant it had little scope to give weight to Mrs B’s personal circumstances.
24. At the end of the day, having accepted there was infant class size prejudice and the admission arrangements were correctly applied, the panel could only uphold Mrs B’s appeal if it concluded the Council’s decision to refuse admission was so unreasonable as to be perverse. But the threshold for finding a decision perverse is very high, and from the information provided I do not see we would have grounds to suggest there was fault in the way the panel reached its view about reasonableness in Mrs B’s particular case.

Final decision

25. The Ombudsman does not have grounds to start an investigation of Mrs B’s complaint about the school admission appeal panel’s decision to refuse her appeal for a place for her son at her preferred primary school. This is because there is no sign of fault in the way the panel considered and decided matters in Mrs B’s case.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman