Summary: Mrs X complained about how the Council refused to give her son a place at her preferred secondary school. The admission appeal panel arranged by the Council failed to fully consider all Mrs X’s grounds of appeal. The Council agreed to arrange a new appeal panel and reconsider Mrs X’s appeal.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council wrongly refused to give her son, Y, a place at her preferred school from September 2023 and that it failed to properly consider her appeal about its decision.
2. As a result, she says that Y missed out on the school place he needs and both she and Y have been caused significant worry and upset. She wants the Council to arrange a new appeal with a different panel and presenting officer.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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 considered:
• the information Mrs X provided and discussed the complaint with her;
• the appeal documents provided by the Council; and
• relevant law and guidance.
7. Mrs 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

School admissions and appeals

8. Statutory guidance about school admissions and appeals can be found in The School Admissions Code and School Admission Appeals Code. Both are published by the Department for Education.
9. Under the system of coordinated admissions, parents make a single application for a school place to their home council. This is the council the parent pays their council tax to.
10. All schools must have a set of admission arrangements containing oversubscription criteria. The school’s admission authority uses these to decide which children will receive an offer of a place if there are more applications than places available. The school’s admission authority sets the admission arrangements.
11. Oversubscription criteria will often be based on catchment areas. Children whose address falls inside a catchment area will normally be given higher priority for admission to the school than those living outside the catchment area.
12. Parents/carers have the right to appeal an admission authority’s decision not to offer their child a school place.
13. Appeal hearings must be held in private and conducted in the presence of all panel members and parties. Appeal panels must act according to the principles of natural justice.
14. A clerk supports the appeal panel. Parents can submit information in support of their appeal. The clerk must send all papers required for the hearing a reasonable time before the date of the hearing. This includes information from the appellant and the admission authority.
15. The admission authority must provide a presenting officer at the hearing to explain the decision not to admit the child and to answer questions from the appellant and panel.
16. Appeal panels must allow appellants the opportunity to appear and present their case.
17. Panels must follow a two-stage decision making process.
18. Stage 1: the panel examines the decision to refuse admission. The panel must consider whether:
• the admissions arrangements complied with the mandatory requirements set out in the School Admissions Code;
• the admission arrangements were applied correctly; and if
• the admission of additional children would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources.
19. If a panel decides that admitting further children would “prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources” they move to the second stage of the process.
20. Stage 2: balancing the arguments. The panel must balance the prejudice to the school against the appellant’s case for the child to be admitted.
21. Appeal panels must either uphold or dismiss an appeal and must not uphold an appeal subject to any conditions. Appeals must be decided by a simple majority of votes cast. A panel’s decision that a child shall be admitted to a school is binding on the admission authority concerned.
22. The clerk must take an accurate record of the hearing, including the proceedings, attendance, voting and reasons for decisions.
23. The appeal panel must write to the appellant, the admission authority and the council with its decision and the reasons for it.

What happened

24. Mrs X applied to her home council for Y to attend School A from September 2023. The Council (rather than Mrs Y’s home council) is the admission authority for School A.
25. Because Y lives outside School A’s catchment area the Council, as the admission authority for School A, decided Y was in the last category of applicants; “other children whose parents have requested a place”.
26. Where a school is oversubscribed, the Council ranks applications within this category based on the distance between the child’s home and the school. It then allocates the available places to applicants who are the closest.
27. The last child given a place at School A under this category lived just under 1.5 miles from School A. Mrs X and Y live around twice this distance from the school, so the Council did not offer Y a place.
28. Mrs Y appealed the Council’s decision not to offer Y a place at School A and the Council arranged an appeal panel for early May 2023 using videoconferencing.
29. Because of the number of appeals for School A, the panel considered Stage 1 of the appeal for all applications together. It heard the school’s arguments that it could not admit any more students and gave the parents who attended the opportunity to ask questions of the school and admission authority. The panel ultimately decided that the admission arrangements were applied correctly and that admitting additional children to the school would “prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources”. Therefore, it went on to consider Mrs X’s appeal individually.
30. In her appeal, Mrs X gave several reasons why the Council should give Y a place at School A.
• Mrs X is disabled and, because of this she cannot drive. She relies on family to take Y to and from school and for other support. These family members live near to School A.
• Y is a young carer (for Mrs X) and gets extra support for this from his current school. Mrs X said only School A would be able to provide the same support for Y.
• Y relies on other family members, close to School A, for emotional and practical support which he would not get at closer schools. Many of the friends Y made at primary school, which also provide support for Y, would be attending School A from September.
• The school which Y had been offered a place was not accessible for her or Y, because of her mobility difficulties.
31. After asking Mrs X some questions and considering what she had told them, the appeal panel decided that her reasons for wanting Y to attend School A did not outweigh the additional pressure this would place on the school. The panel wrote to Mrs X a few days after the appeal, refusing her appeal.

My findings

32. Since Mrs X and Y do not live within School A’s catchment area and Y does not have any other siblings at the school, I am satisfied the Council correctly placed Y in the last priority group.
33. I am also satisfied that there was no fault in how the appeal panel consider Stage 1 of the appeal.
34. The notes of the panel meeting show that Mrs X had the opportunity to address the panel and explain her reasons for Y needing to attend School A, including her disability, reliance of relatives near school A and where Y’s current friend group would be attending school from September 2023. The panel also gave Mrs X the opportunity, at the end of its questions, to add anything further she wished to add.
35. Although the appeal panel did not ask Mrs X for any evidence of her disability, my view is that the panel accepted what Mrs X said about her mobility difficulties and that she relied on other relatives to help take Y to school. The panel suggested other schools near School A and Mrs X’s relatives, though Mrs X told the panel she did not consider these schools to be suitable for Y.
36. However, I am not satisfied that the panel properly considered Y’s needs as a young carer and whether he could receive appropriate support at a different school. The panel did not ask Mrs X any questions about Y’s caring role, the impact of this on him, or the support he currently got from his school.
37. I cannot say whether, had it explored that part of Mrs X’s appeal, the appeal panel would have made a different decision. This would be a decision for a fresh appeal panel to make after properly exploring the issue.

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Agreed action

38. Within one month the Council will:
• apologise to Mrs Y for the appeal panel’s failure to fully address her grounds of appeal; and
• arrange a fresh appeal panel to reconsider Mrs Y’s appeal. It should ensure the new appeal panel explores Y’s caring role, the effects of this on him and the support he received from his primary school relating to this.
39. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

40. I have completed my investigation. The admission appeal panel arranged by the Council failed to fully consider all Mrs X’s grounds of appeal. The Council agreed to arrange a new appeal panel and reconsider Mrs X’s appeal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman