Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his application for a school place for his son. Mr X’s appeal for a place was successful. Any outstanding injustice is not significant enough to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s handling of his application for a school place for his son (Y). Mr X says the Council wrongly changed his application and withheld information before and during his appeal. Mr X is unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint. Mr X wants compensation for distress and time missed at work and the Council to make service improvements.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
3. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the council involved in this case.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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What I found

Background

6. Mr X applied for Y to start secondary school in September 2025 at his preferred school (School Z). This is a foundation school and so the governing body is the admission authority. It therefore has ultimate responsibility for school admissions. This includes determining the school’s admission arrangements, deciding which children it will offer places to, and offering parents a right of appeal against decisions not to offer a place.
7. Under the system of coordinated admissions, the Council is required to receive applications from residents in its area and to send offers on behalf of admission authorities. Its appeals service also arranges school admission appeals on behalf of some admission authorities – but this is not a statutory function.
8. School Z did not offer Y a place and Mr X appealed the decision. An independent panel considered Mr X’s case. Panels are required to consider if the school’s admission arrangements were properly applied to the appellant’s case. If a panel decides they were not, and this meant the appellant’s child were wrongly refused a place, then it must uphold the appeal.
9. In this case, the panel decided there had been an error with the handling of Mr X’s application which had denied Y a place. The primary school Y attended had not been considered. The panel decided this should have given them priority for admission to School Z. The panel therefore upheld the appeal.
10. Mr X complained to the Council. His complaint included the Council removing the linked primary school from his application and not providing information in advance of his appeal. Mr X was also unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint.
11. We will not investigate this complaint. Ultimately, Y was offered a place at his preferred school. And although Mr X was caused some frustration and time and trouble appealing the initial decision not to offer Y a place at School Z, the Council has explained what happened, apologised, and has said it will contact School Z about the wording of its admission arrangements. These actions are sufficient to remedy the injustice caused to Mr X and reduced the possibility of the same thing happening in future. Therefore, there is not enough significant outstanding injustice to start an investigation.
12. Mr X is also unhappy with the Council’s complaint handling. But we will not look at complaint handling in isolation if we are not going to look at the matter which led to the original complaint. That is the case here.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because any outstanding injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman