Summary: Mr X complained that the Council did not provide him with sufficient information and support when he was making an online application for a place for his child at his preferred primary school. I found no evidence of fault by the Council and no fault in the way the Independent Appeal Panel considered his infant class size appeal.

The complaint

1. Mrs X made this complaint and authorised her husband, Mr X, to act as her representative.
2. Mrs X complained that the Council did not give Mr X sufficient support to navigate the online school application process. In particular, it did not prompt or remind him to upload supporting evidence about the family’s medical and social needs, and the supplementary form relating to faith, before he submitted the application form on the portal.
3. Mrs X does not consider the Council made reasonable adjustments for disabled parents who need support with the school application process. She does not consider the Independent Appeal Panel gave sufficient consideration to the difficulties Mr X faced in making the application when it heard their appeal in July 2021.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether the complainant disagrees with that decision.
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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have spoken to Mr X and considered the records from his online application and the appeal.
7. I made enquiries to the Council and considered its response.
8. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

The relevant law

Admission arrangements

9. Under the system of coordinated admissions, parents make a single application for a school place to their home council.  
10. All schools must have a set of published admission arrangements which include their oversubscription criteria. The school’s admission authority uses these to decide which children will be offered a place if it receives more applications than places available. The school’s admission authority sets the admission arrangements.  
11. A school’s admission arrangements must also contain a Published Admission Number. This is the number of places the school will offer at each point of entry. The School Standards and Framework Act limits the size of infant classes (a class in which most of the children will reach the age of 5, 6 or 7 during the school year) to 30 pupils with a qualified teacher.

The Council’s school admissions process

12. The Council sent me a screenshot of the information that appears on the portal when a parent selects School X on the preferences page. A pop-up message says:

“Click here to view any additional information required when applying for this school”

When the parent clicks on that hyperlink, it says:

“The school has a supplementary information form to be completed if applying for a place on the basis of faith grounds”

13. There is no equivalent prompt to remind parents to submit supporting evidence if they are applying for a place at a particular school on medical or social grounds. However this information can be found on the Council’s website in Frequently Asked Questions “What you need to know before applying for a primary school place". It explains that, for applications to foundation or voluntary aided schools and academies, parents should check with the school if they need to complete a supplementary form and return it directly to the school. It also explains that if a parent is applying for a particular school because of a medical or psychological need, evidence of the condition must be supplied directly to the school. It warns that failure to provide relevant evidence may lead to the child missing out on a place at the preferred school.
14. Before submitting the application form through the portal, all parents must make a declaration stating that they have read and understood the admissions criteria for each of the schools they have selected. The Council’s website gives guidance on how to make an application for a reception class place and sets this out as a four step process. Step 2 tells the parent what they need to know before applying for a place. It explains the difference between admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled schools (where the Council is the admissions authority) and other types of school. It includes a link to the admissions criteria for every school, including School X. The website tells parents it is essential to read the admissions criteria because they may be different for each school.
15. The Council’s web page for all 4 steps in the application process include details of how to contact the school admissions team for support or information.

Admission appeals

16. An Independent Appeal Panel can only uphold an appeal for a place in an infant class in very limited circumstances.   
17. The statutory Appeals Code says in an infant class size (ICS) appeal, the panel must consider:
• whether the admission of an additional child or children would breach the infant class size limit; 
• whether the admission arrangements complied with the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998; 
• whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case in question; and 
• whether the decision to refuse admission was one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case. 

What is ‘reasonable’ is a high test. The panel needs to be sure that the decision to refuse a place was “perverse” or “outrageous”. For that reason, panels rarely find an admission authority’s decision to be unreasonable. 

Reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities
 

18. The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010. It applies to any body which carries out a public function. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.
     
19. Service providers are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them.
     
20. The duty is ‘anticipatory’. This means service providers cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use their services but must think in advance about what disabled people with a range of impairments might reasonably need.
21. The Council’s website includes a banner at the foot of each page. It includes a hyperlink to the Council’s accessibility statement. Clicking on that link provides information for users who cannot access the website and need information in a different format such as large print, easy read, audio or braille. It provides an email address, telephone number and postal address to make a request. The Council will respond within five working days.
22. In response to my enquiries, the Council said it has assisted many parents who need reasonable adjustments due to a disability or poor literacy. This includes offering alternative formats or face-to-face or telephone appointments to take them through the school application. To the best of its knowledge, it has never failed to meet a parent’s accessibility need when they request support.

What happened

23. Mr X has dyslexia and finds it easier to read documents on a yellow background. Mrs X has long-standing medical conditions which affect her physical and mental health. She has limited mobility, does not drive and finds it difficult to go far from home.
24. In early September 2020 Mr X used the Council’s online portal to apply for a reception class place for his child for September 2021. This was the first time Mr X had applied for a school place.
25. Mr X expressed a preference for the local Church of England primary school, which I shall call School X. He had the option of adding three more schools but did not select any others.
26. Mr X gave the following reasons for his preference for School X:
• His child was christened at the church linked to the school;
• Their Christian faith is important to the family and they worship at the church linked to the school;
• Medical and social reasons: Mrs X is disabled, she does not drive and School X is within walking distance of their home.
27. When he made the application, Mr X did not upload any supporting evidence about the family’s medical and social needs. He did not complete the school’s supplementary faith form and upload it to the Council’s portal or send it directly to School X. Mr X told me he understood the Council would contact him if it needed any supporting evidence. He also expected he would have been prompted to provide evidence if his application was incomplete. Mr X submitted the application in early September 2020. He did not contact the admissions team to ask for advice or assistance before doing so.
28. School X’s published admissions criteria says the Published Admission Number for its reception class is 30. If the school receives more than 30 applications, it ranks them in the following order of priority:
• Children in public care and formerly looked after children;
• Children whose medical or social circumstances mean their needs can only be met at this school;
• Children whose siblings are on the school roll;
• Children from families which regularly worship at the linked Church of England church and who were baptised there;
• Children from families which worship at another parish church;
• Children who live closest to the school measured by walking distance from home to school.
29. The criteria also underline the need for supporting evidence from a professional, such as a doctor or social worker, if the application is made on the grounds of a medical or social need.
30. On 16 April 2021, the Council informed Mr X that his application for a place at School X had not been successful. It offered a place at the local community primary school instead because it was the nearest school with a place.

Mr X’s appeal

31. Mr X appealed against the refusal of a place at School X. On the appeal form, he gave the following reasons for appeal:
• His child had been baptised at the linked church and the family regularly attended the church;
• Mrs X had mental health conditions and restricted mobility;
• The refusal had adversely affected Mrs X’s mental health;
• Mrs X did not drive but she could manage to pick up and drop off their child at School X which was closer to their home;
• Their child had recently started speech therapy and would benefit from being in a smaller group of children.
32. Mr X provided several letters of support from the family’s GP, a community mental health nurse, his employer, his wife’s consultant and a priest.
33. In its appeal statement, the school said it had received 44 applications for 30 places in the reception class. It gave a breakdown of how it had allocated those places with reference to its admissions criteria. Half of the places were allocated to siblings of children who were already pupils at the school. Just under a quarter of places were allocated on faith grounds. The remaining places were allocated equally to children with medical/social needs to attend the school and to those who lived nearest to the school.
34. Mr X’s application was considered under the distance criterion. This was because he had not submitted the supplementary faith form or supporting evidence about the family’s medical and social needs, before the closing date for applications.
35. The school’s appeal statement gave the home to school distance of the last child admitted under the distance criterion. Mr X’s family lived further from the school than that child. The school said it could not offer Mr X’s child a place because that would breach the infant class size limit.
36. Mr & Mrs X both attended the virtual appeal hearing in July 2021. Mr X raised concerns about the application process for the first time in the hearing. He said he had found it stressful. He believed he would be asked to provide more information if it was required. He also said he considered the application process was discriminatory because it did not prompt him to upload evidence.
37. The school’s representative said the application had to be considered on the information available on the portal. The school had not received a supplementary form and supporting evidence for medical or social needs had been provided before the closing date. Places were allocated based on the information available at the time. Mr X had not shown that he qualified under the faith or medical/social criteria so his application was considered under the distance criterion. The family did not live close enough to the school to be offered a place on distance grounds.
38. Mr X also spoke about Mrs X’s medical condition and the impact on the family if their child went to the allocated school. He emphasised their strong connection to the church linked to School X and the importance of their child attending a faith school.
39. The Appeal Panel then retired to consider the evidence. It found:
• It would breach the infant class size limit of 30 pupils to admit another child to the school;
• The admission arrangements complied with the relevant legal requirements and statutory guidance;
• The admission arrangements were applied correctly and impartially in this case. It was the parent’s responsibility to ensure all the relevant evidence and information was sent in at the application stage. The Council’s website provides guidance on the admissions process and links to the school’s admissions criteria. Mr X could have asked the admissions team for help if he needed it;
• The decision to refuse admission was not unreasonable based on the information available at the time.
• Mr X had later provided evidence which moved his child into first position on School X’s waiting list.
40. The Clerk to the Appeal Panel wrote to tell Mr & Mrs X the Panel had not upheld their appeal and gave reasons for the decision.
41. Since January 2022 Mr & Mrs X’s child has attended a community primary school. They still want him to attend School X. Mr X says his wife has very little involvement in their child’s school because it is too far from their home and she cannot get there. As Mr X works, they depend on a relative to drive their child to school.

My analysis

42. The Council’s website includes detailed guidance about School X’s admissions criteria and the process parents must follow to apply for a place. It guides parents through the four stages in the admissions process. For voluntary aided faith schools, it explains that parents must complete a supplementary form and return it to the school. There is also a prompt on the portal to alert parents to complete a supplementary form when they apply for a place at School X on faith grounds.
43. The website also tells parents to provide supporting evidence if they are making the application on medical or social grounds. Although there is no prompt on the portal, parents must declare that they have read and understood the information about the admissions process before submitting the form.
44. I have not found fault with the information the Council provides to parents. The Council’s website explains the admissions process, directs parents to the school’s own admissions criteria and tells parents what they need to do. If parents do not read all the guidance before they complete and submit the application, or if they skip one of the recommended stages, that is not the Council’s fault.
45. Mr X completed the form and submitted it online. It was accepted as a valid application because the form itself was complete. It is the parent’s responsibility to check whether any additional information or evidence is needed to support an application to a faith school. There were links to information about School X’s requirements on the Council’s website and on the application portal. Unfortunately it seems Mr X did not click on that link and so he did not find that information. He therefore did not realise he needed to submit a supplementary faith form to School X,or provide evidence from a relevant professional about his family’s medical or social needs, before the closing date for applications. As a result, his application was considered under the lower priority distance criterion because he had not provided any evidence to show he met the faith or medical/social criteria.
46. It is likely Mr X’s child would have qualified for a place under one of the higher priority criteria if he had submitted the faith form and supporting evidence in time. I understand Mr X is very disappointed and frustrated that his child did not get a place at School X. He had not applied for a school before and genuinely believed he had completed the process correctly. Although this is very unfortunate for Mr X and his family, this did not happen because of fault by the Council. There were links and prompts to guide parents through the admissions process on the website and portal and it seems Mr X missed or overlooked these.
47. Mr X has dyslexia. It is likely he found it more difficult than other parents to navigate his way through the admissions process. The Council has explained that it does make reasonable adjustments for parents on request. And every web page gave details of how to contact the school admissions team. So Mr X could have asked for advice and assistance if he was confused or unsure about what to do. He could also have contacted the team to ask them to check the application to make sure he had provided all the necessary information. Mr X did not contact the admissions team until after he found out his child had been refused a place at School X. Unfortunately that was too late as all 30 places at School X had been allocated by then.
48. I also examined the way the Independent Appeal Panel considered Mr X’s appeal and reached its decision. The Panel can only uphold an infant class size appeal in very limited circumstances. On the evidence I have seen, the Panel properly considered the evidence and correctly decided none of the limited grounds which would allow it to uphold an appeal applied in this case. The Ombudsman cannot find fault with a decision that was properly made.

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Final decision

49. I have completed the investigation and found no fault with the information the Council provided to parents on its website and portal to guide them through the school admissions process. And there was no fault in the way the Independent Appeal Panel considered Mr X’s appeal under the infant class size rules. The Council has put in place arrangements to make reasonable adjustments for parents with disabilities who request help with the school application process.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman