Summary: We will not investigate the complaint about the refusal of admission to Mrs X’s preferred school for her daughter. This is because there is no evidence of fault in the way the Independent Appeal Panel hearing the case made its decision.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains that the Independent Appeal Panel (IAP) hearing her appeal did not consider her case properly. She says that it did not consider her complaint that information about a sibling link in the School was not properly processed. She says this meant she missed out on a place which her daughter would otherwise have been offered.

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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 a 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 considered information provided by the complainant and the School.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says that the IAP did not properly consider her allegation that there were errors in processing her application for a place at the School.
6. Importantly, Mrs X says her daughter would have been offered a place if the School had processed her documents which showed that her daughter had a sibling already at the School, which is one of the School’s priority criteria in the admissions process.
7. The IAP considered this point and concluded there was no evidence to support it. As Mrs X challenged this decision, I have reviewed the original application that Mrs X made for her daughter’s preferred schools. It shows that when applying for this School, Mrs X did not select the sibling link option from the drop-down menu which meant her application was not considered under this criterion.
8. The appeal panel records show they took consideration of the sibling link. However as the class was now full, they found they could not take another child due to regulations around infant class sizes (The School Admissions (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 2012).)
9. School admission appeal panels must follow the law (The School Admissions (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 2012) when considering an appeal for an infant class (ICS). The panel must consider whether: the case has been made that the ICS regulations apply, and that the school would have to make unreasonable adjustments if an additional place was offered; and the admission arrangements comply with the law and that the admission arrangements were properly applied to the case.
10. The panel must then consider whether the decision to refuse the appeal was unreasonable.
11. In this case, the clerk’s notes and refusal letter show that the IAP considered all these points properly.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault on the part of the IAP in the way it made its decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman