Summary: Mrs F complained about how the Council and a school admission appeal panel handled her application for a place for her son at his preferred primary school. We found no fault.

The complaint

1. Mrs F complained about how the Council and a school admission appeal panel handled her application for a place for her son at his preferred primary school. In particular she complained that the Council:
• failed to apply the correct oversubscription criteria by using her old address, despite being informed of their permanent move to an in-catchment address well before the deadline.
• ignored supporting evidence, failed to follow its procedures, and breached the School Admissions Code.
2. Mrs F complained that the appeal panel:
• Did not properly consider all relevant facts, overlooked key evidence, and misapplied the legal test under Infant Class Size regulations.
• Issued a decision letter which lacked transparency and clear reasoning.
3. Mrs F says this has caused significant distress, her son to miss out on his preferred school and she now has to manage two school runs, which is difficult due to her caring responsibilities and work commitments.
4. Mrs F wants the Council to offer her son the place he would have received had the correct address been used. She seeks a formal apology, a fresh appeal applying the correct legal test, a review of admissions procedures and panel training, and redress for the emotional strain and disruption caused.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
6. 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

7. I spoke to Mrs F about her complaint and considered:
• information she and the Council sent
• the admission appeal papers and the Clerk's notes of the panel hearing
• the Council's admission arrangements for 2025
• the School Admission Appeals Code 2022
• the School Admissions Code 2021
• The School Admissions (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 2012
8. Mrs F and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

School admissions

9. Parents make a single application for a school place to the admission authority (in this case, the Council). All schools must have a set of admission arrangements containing oversubscription criteria. The Council uses these to decide which children will receive an offer of a place if there are more applications than places available. The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 limits the size of infant classes to 30 pupils per teacher.

Home addresses

10. The School Admissions Code states that only one offer per child must be made by the local authority. Therefore, only one address can be used to determine the outcome of an application. It says the admissions process is always concerned with the child’s actual residence, not the parent's administrative address. How the child’s home address is defined will be in the Council’s admission arrangements.
11. The Council’s admissions arrangements say the child's home address is the address where the child lives most of the time with their parent or carer (a person holding parental responsibility), not the address of any child-carer, grandparent or other relative.
12. The Council may request proof of the child’s residency. The documentation required is not prescribed, and applicants can submit whatever evidence is available that is sufficient to demonstrate the claim.
13. If two applications are received from different addresses, the authority will use the address of the parent who receives child benefit to determine the outcome of the application. Where child benefit is not claimed, the authority will use the address where the child is registered with the GP.

School admissions appeals

14. Parents/carers have the right to appeal an admission authority’s decision not to offer their child a school place. Appeals are considered by an independent appeal panel.
15. The School Admission Appeals Code sets out a two-stage process for considering appeals. In the first stage the panel examines the decision to refuse admission and considers whether it was made properly. It also has to decide whether the admission of additional children would "prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources" for those already at the school.
16. If the panel decides that prejudice would be caused it goes on to the second stage. In this stage the panel must balance the prejudice to the school against the appellant's case for the child to be admitted. It must decide whether the appellant's case outweighs the prejudice.
17. In relation to appeals for admission to an infant class, the infant class size (ICS) regulations say the class size can only exceed 30 pupils where the law explicitly requires or permits a child to be an “excepted pupil”. What constitutes an excepted pupil is strictly defined and narrowly applied in the regulations. It includes children who were initially refused admission to the school owing to a failure properly to implement the admission arrangements but were subsequently offered a place by virtue of a determination by the admission authority that there had been such a failure.
18. Panels can therefore only uphold infant class size appeals in limited circumstances. The Appeals Code says in an ICS appeal the panel must consider:
1. whether the admission of an additional child or children would breach the infant class size limit; 
2. 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; 
3. whether the admission arrangements were correctly and impartially applied in the case in question; and 
4. whether the decision to refuse admission was one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case. 
19. 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

20. Mrs F was living with her husband and two children at Address 1. In 2024, Mrs F’s mother, who has dementia, fell and required care. Mrs F says she and her children moved into her mother’s home (Address 2) so that Mrs F could help care for her. The children stayed at Address 1 with their father at weekends.
21. Address 2 is in the catchment area of School A. Mrs F’s son, M, started at the nursery of School A in December 2024. Mrs F says the nursery did a home visit in July to check that M was living at Address 2.
22. Mrs F applied for M to start primary school, her preferred school was School A.
23. The Council emailed Mrs F on 28 January 2025. It said it would be using Address 1 to determine the application. This was because the Council used the address where the child normally and permanently lives, not the address of any child-carer, grandparent or other relative. The Council said its information showed M lived at Address 1.
24. Mrs F asked what other evidence she could provide to show that M was resident at Address 2. The Council did not reply.
25. On school offer day on 16 April, the Council offered M a place at School B, which is the school closest to Address 1.
26. Mrs F appealed on 5 May. She said the Council had wrongly decided M was resident at Address 1.
27. Prior to the appeal panel hearing, there was some correspondence between Mrs F and the Council. The Council said:
• M's application was considered under category 4 for School A because Address 1 is outside the catchment area but M had a sibling in School A. All the available places were allocated to applicants with a higher priority.
• Council tax records showed that the householder liable for council tax for Address 1 was not receiving a single person discount.
• It apologised that it had not replied to Mrs F’s email but the Council did not require evidence of Mrs F’s residency at Address 2 because it would not have changed its decision to use Address 1.
• The Council considered Mrs F’s residency at Address 2 was, at best, temporary and there was no guarantee that she would not move back to Address 1. The Council must act as the representative for other parents and make sure that there was no attempt to gain an unfair advantage.
28. There was an appeal panel hearing. The clerk’s notes show the panel discussed M’s address. Mrs F told the panel M lived at Address 2. The panel was aware she had evidence of this (such as utility bills, bank statements etc). The Council said it had decided that Address 1 was M’s address due to council tax liability and that M’s child benefit was claimed from Address 1. The Council said it therefore did not require more address evidence. Mrs F said the family had been unaware of the single person discount for council tax; she had no plans to move back to Address 1. The panel discussed what happened in school holidays, the morning routine, and the family’s plans for Address 1.
29. The panel wrote to Mrs F with its decision. The letter said the family was found to be liable for council tax at Address 1 so the application was considered from there. After considering the evidence, the panel had decided that the published admissions criteria had been correctly applied and the decision to refuse admission was not perverse. There were therefore no grounds on which the panel could allow the appeal. Mrs F came to the Ombudsman.

My findings

30. We are not a right of further appeal and cannot question decisions when the proper process was followed and decisions were properly taken. Our 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. It is for the panel to decide what weight to give the evidence. As long as it considered the evidence put forward properly, we 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.
31. I am satisfied from the Clerk’s notes of the hearing and the appeal decision letter that the appeal panel and hearing were conducted properly in accordance with the Appeals Code.
32. I have gone on to consider whether there was fault in the way the panel made its decision.
33. Mrs F says the Council and panel did not properly consider her child’s home address. In response to my draft decision, she said the Council has since accepted that she and her children have been living at Address 2 since February 2024 and the council tax records have been amended and backdated.
34. But after determining the questions set out at paragraph 18 a) and b), the panel had to decide if the Council had correctly and impartially applied the admission arrangements on the basis of the information the Council had about the application on 16 April 2025. The council tax records were not changed until November 2025 so the panel would not have considered this.
35. The notes of the hearing, including the panel's decision-making, show that the panel considered M’s home address. It was aware that Mrs F had said M lived at Address 2 and had evidence to show this. The panel examined conflicting evidence and, through questioning, checked whether the Council had applied residency criteria fairly and correctly. It concluded that the Council had not made an error when deciding that M’s home address was Address 1. This is a decision the panel was entitled to reach and I have seen no fault in the way it decided this.
36. As there had been no failure to properly implement the admission arrangements, M was not an excepted pupil. This meant the only ground on which the panel could allow Mrs F’s appeal was if it decided the decision not to admit was perverse or outrageous. I have seen no fault in the panel’s decision that the decision to refuse admission was a reasonable one.
37. Whilst I appreciate Mrs F disagrees, I am satisfied that the panel properly considered Mrs F’s appeal and there was no fault. There are therefore no grounds for the Ombudsman to question the panel’s decision.

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Decision

38. There was no fault. I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman