Summary: Mrs D says the Council is at fault for a failure to enforce its school admissions policy by carrying out checks to ensure children applying for places at a local school were eligible. As a result, Mrs D says she and her child, Y, suffered injustice as Mrs D was refused a place at the school despite living in the catchment area. The Council was not at fault. The Council made reasonable checks to ensure applicants met the admissions criteria and the appeal panel applied national and Council policies correctly.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I have called Mrs D, says the Council is at fault for errors made when deciding her application for a place for her child, Y, at a local primary school. She says the Council failed to carry out checks to ensure that children lived in the school catchment area.
2. As a result, she says, she and Y have suffered injustice as Y was denied a place at the school. Mrs D says this has been disruptive as Y had links to the school.
3. She would like the Council to investigate her allegations and to review its policy to prevent repetitions of these faults.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’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)
6. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I spoke to Mrs D and, using the information she gave me, wrote an enquiry letter to the Council. I then wrote a draft decision using the information I had gathered.
8. I gave Mrs C and the Council an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. Neither of them had any comments.

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What I found

What should happen

National law and guidance

9. School admissions are governed by the School Admissions Code 2014. For most state schools, the local council acts as admissions authority.
10. In England, in Years 1 and 2, there is a cap on class sizes of 30 pupils per class.
11. Each admissions authority must draw up admissions criteria which apply to all schools in its area. These criteria must include criteria for distributing places in the event that a school is oversubscribed.
12. Councils must distribute places in accordance with these criteria.

The Council’s admissions criteria

13. The Council says it distributes places giving priority to the following groups:
1. Looked after and previously looked after children;
2. Children who were previously in state care outside of England and have now been adopted locally
3. Children with exceptional social or medical needs
4. Feeder school pupils
5. Catchment area pupils (pupils whose permanent home address is within the school catchment area of the school.
6. Non-catchment area siblings- pupils who have a sibling already at the school but live outside the school’s catchment area.
7. All other applicants.
14. Where a school is oversubscribed, the Council’s guidance says it will give priority to the following groups first:
1. For categories a-f (in para 14 above) priority will be given first to siblings.
2. For reception applications only, a child entitled to the Early Years Pupil Premium Grant who attends the nursery school attached to the school.
3. A child whose permanent home address is closest to the school.

What happened

15. Mrs D lives in the Council’s area in the catchment area of a primary school (’the school’). Her child, Y, attended the nursery attached to the school. In summer 2020, she applied for a place for Y in reception at the school in the September 2020 intake.
16. The Council, as admission authority for the school, considered her application. It did not offer a place to Y as, it said, the school had reached capacity having offered places to other children with greater priority.
17. Mrs D says, she then discovered that at least three of the pupils who had been awarded places did not live in the catchment are. She says two siblings lived with one of their divorced parents several miles away but had applied for a place using their other parent’s address in the catchment area. She said another family had applied using their child’s grandparents’ address.
18. Mrs D appealed the refusal. The appeal panel upheld the refusal of the place.
19. Mrs D complained to the Ombudsman.

Was there fault causing injustice?

20. The Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the appeal panel followed the Admissions Code. We do this by examining the panel’s papers and the notes taken by the Clerk during the hearing. We do not have the power to overturn the panel's decision, and we cannot give a child a place at the school.
21. It is for the panel to decide what weight to give the evidence. As long as it considered the evidence put forward properly, the Ombudsman cannot say what conclusion it should have come to. If we find fault which calls the panel's decision into question, we may ask for a new appeal hearing.
22. In infant class size appeals, the panel has very limited grounds to uphold an appeal. The law says an infant class must not have more than 30 pupils. If this number has been reached – as the Council said it had - the panel can only uphold the appeal if it considers the admissions criteria did not comply with the law; that the criteria were not applied properly; or that the decision to refuse was one no reasonable authority would make.

Checks on criteria

23. In response to my enquiries, the Council says it allocated all places according to national and Council eligibility criteria. It says it carried out reasonable checks to ensure that this was the case. It has sent me evidence of the steps it took and the evidence and policy considerations it bore in mind when reaching its decisions.
24. Neither the Council nor I can disclose this information for data protection reasons. Having reviewed this evidence, I am satisfied there was no fault in the way the Council decided the School was full.
25. I therefore have no grounds to criticise the panel's decision. There is no suggestion the admissions criteria did not comply with the law, nor that the criteria were not properly applied.

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Final decision

26. I have investigated the complaint. I have found the Council was not at fault. I have closed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman