Summary: The Council’s school appeals panel failed to give proper consideration to the validity of its admissions arrangements when deciding Miss X’s school admissions appeal. This did not cause Miss X an injustice as it is unlikely her child, Y, would have been awarded a school place had the panel properly considered the arrangements. The Council has agreed to remind its appeal staff and panel members to properly consider its admissions arrangements in future.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council failed to properly apply criteria within its admissions arrangements when deciding a school admissions appeal for her child, Y. She says the criteria was ambiguous and did not comply with the national School admissions code. Ms X says the panel’s decision was incorrect because of this. She says this caused Y distress. She wants the Council to accept it did not adhere to the Code when deciding Y’s appeal.

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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 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. When considering complaints we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
4. 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(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. Ms X and the Council have had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

The Law

School Admissions

7. 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. 
8. 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. 
9. 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.  
10. 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. 
11. Each admission authority must also maintain a clear, fair and objective waiting list, with each child ranked in line with the Council’s published oversubscription criteria.
12. The School Admissions Code says admissions authorities may give priority in their oversubscription criteria to children of staff where they have been employed at the school for two or more years or recruited to fill a vacant post at the school for which there is a demonstrable skills shortage. Councils must specify how this priority will be applied.
13. Admissions arrangements should be fair, clear and objective, with parents able to easily understand how places will be allocated. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) considers objections to admission arrangements.

The Council’s admission arrangements and oversubscription criteria

14. In the 2025/26 admissions round the Council applied the following criteria to determine who to offer a place to, after admitting children with an Education, Health and Care Plan:
• Children who are, or were previously, looked after children.
• Children with a sibling attending the school.
• Distance from home to school.
15. The arrangements also say the Council will place children of newly appointed school staff at the top of the waiting list if they have filled a post where there is a demonstrable skills shortage.

Infant Class Size Appeals

16. Parents have the right to appeal an admission authority’s decision not to offer their child a school place.  
17. 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 a teacher. The Appeals Code refers to these as infant class size (ICS) appeals. Panels can only uphold these appeals in limited circumstances.  
18. Admission authorities must provide parents with information on the limited circumstances in which an infant class size appeal can be upheld so they can make an informed decision about whether to submit an appeal. 
19. The Appeals Code says in an 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. 

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

What happened

21. Y’s father started work at school A in 2022. Y attended the nursery at school A. In 2024 Miss X applied to the Council for a primary school place for Y. Miss X selected school A as Y’s preference, with school B as the second preference.
22. In April 2025 the Council offered Y a place at school B. Miss X appealed the decision. She said Y would have been at the top of the waiting list for school A if the Council had applied the admissions arrangements for children of staff at the school. She argued the admissions arrangements incorrectly referred to “newly appointed” staff which was not part of the school admissions code.
23. At the same time Miss X also lodged an objection to the admissions arrangements with the OSA. She said the school admissions arrangements did not define “newly appointed” and the Code made no reference to newly appointed staff. She said the admissions arrangements were not clear.
24. The Council considered Miss X’s appeal in July 2025 and refused the appeal. The Council said the admission of Y would breach the infant class size limit and there was no evidence the admissions arrangements did not comply with the law. At the appeal the Council clarified that it considered “newly appointed” to mean being appointed within the school year. The panel agreed the policy needed to be clearer. Miss X remained unhappy and complained to the Ombudsman.
25. In October 2025 the OSA issued its determination on the admissions arrangements. It upheld Miss X’s objection that the term “newly appointed” was unclear. It also found there were other aspects of the arrangements which did not conform to the code. The OSA found that the Council did not set out how the priority given to children of members of staff was considered alongside its oversubscription criteria. The OSA ordered the Council to revise its admissions arrangements.
26. The Council has since issued an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan for Y naming school A as their placement. Y started at school A in January 2026.

My findings

27. The Ombudsman’s role is not to decide on the validity of the admissions arrangements. The OSA has decided that and issued its determination. Our role is to decide if there was fault in the Council’s consideration of Miss X’s appeal. The appeal panel decided the admissions arrangements complied with the School Admissions Code, while the OSA has since found they did not. While the panel could not have known what findings the OSA would make, it should have given the validity of the admissions arrangements proper consideration itself.
28. Having considered the panel’s notes and deliberations, on balance, the panel did not give proper consideration to whether the admissions arrangements complied with the mandatory requirements of the code. The panel discussed the application of the staff criteria at length. However, these discussions focused more on the application of the admissions arrangements and failed to consider whether the arrangements themselves were flawed. This was fault.
29. While there was fault in the panel’s consideration of Miss X’s appeal it did not result in an injustice to Miss X, or that Y should have been awarded a place at school A sooner. The admissions arrangements around staff are optional and we cannot say what arrangements the Council would have included instead of the arrangements in place. Even if Y’s father had met the requirements, the Code says the Council should have considered Y’s priority alongside its other oversubscription criteria rather than moving Y to the top of the waiting list. On balance, it is unlikely Y would have been awarded a place had the panel properly considered the admissions arrangements. Y has also since been awarded a place at the school. There is no injustice to Miss X because of fault by the Council.

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Agreed Actions

30. Within three months of the final decision the Council has agreed to remind all appeals staff and panel members to always give proper consideration to whether the admissions arrangements comply with the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and Part 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998.  

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Decision

I find fault not causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman