Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s school admissions appeal panel refusing her appeal. It is unlikely we would find fault which caused Mrs X to lose out on a school place.

The complaint

1. Mrs X says the Council’s schools’ admissions appeals panel should have granted her child, B, a place at School Y.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 a school admissions appeals panel made its decision. If there was no fault in how the panel made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended).

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mrs X, which included the appeal panel’s decision letter and a letter in support of her appeal.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

The appeals process

5. 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. 
6. Parents/carers have the right to appeal an admission authority’s decision not to offer their child a school place.  
7. 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. 
8. 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. 
9. The clerk must take an accurate record of the hearing, including the proceedings, attendance, voting and reasons for decisions. 
10. 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. 
11. Appeal panels must allow appellants the opportunity to make oral representations.
12. 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. 
13. The clerk to the panel must write to the appellant, the admission authority and the council with the panel’s decision and reasons. 
14. The Education Act 1996 states a child reaches compulsory school age on the prescribed day following his or her fifth birthday. The prescribed days are 31 December, 31 March and 31 August.
15. 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.  
16. 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. 
17. 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. 

18. 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. 
19. In limited circumstances, children can be admitted as exceptions to ICS limit. These exceptions include children of compulsory school-age who move into the area outside the normal admissions round for whom there is no other available school within reasonable distance.  
20. ICS appeals also applies where admitting a further child would lead to a breach of the infant class size limit in future years.

Events in this case

21. Mrs X applied for a place at School Y in reception to start in September 2026. It is her nearest school. There were more applicants than places and the Council used its admission criteria to allocate the places. Mrs X missed out to applicants who live closer to the school than her. The Council allocated her School Z. It is 1.3 miles walking distance from her home.
22. Mrs X appealed to the Council’s schools’ admissions appeals panel. It considered her appeal in June 2026. She told the appeal panel she wanted a place for reasons including that:
• She wanted the closest school because they had medical issues.
• She thought the allocated school was too far for B to walk.
23. The appeal panel dismissed the appeal as an infant class size appeal. She complained to us. She said:
1. The Council had lost their medical evidence and their application had not been assessed as being in the medical category which would have qualified her for a place.
2. The Appeal Panel had not been given their medical evidence.

Analysis

24. The Council confirmed the appeal panel was adjourned for a day to ensure Mrs X’s medical evidence was before the appeal panel. It is unlikely we could say Mrs X has been caused any significant injustice by the appeal panel initially not having the evidence as it had it when it decided the appeal.
25. We asked Mrs X to provide us with the medical evidence which she believes the Council should have considered before it made the allocations. And that which she wanted the appeal panel to see. Some of the evidence she provided is from after the appeal date and is not therefore relevant. None of the evidence shows that Mr or Mrs X could not walk 1.3 miles or the return distance of 2.6 miles. And none of the evidence shows that School X is the only school B should attend for medical reasons. Therefore, even if the Council had lost the medical evidence it is unlikely it could have made a difference.
26. The law says it is reasonable to expect a child under 8 to walk up to two miles to school. The allocated school is within that distance. If Mrs X believes B cannot walk to School Z because of a disability, she can apply for home to school transport.
27. The appeal panel decided the admission arrangements had been applied properly, and Mrs X’s case did not amount to the decision to refuse a place being perverse. The Clerk’s notes show the appeal panel actively considered the points Mrs X raised at the appeal but decided they were not sufficient to mean refusing allocation was perverse. We are unlikely to find fault in its decision.

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Final decision

28. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is unlikely we would find fault in the appeal panel’s decision which has caused them to lose out on a place at School Y.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman