Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a school admissions appeal. There is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council considered Mr X’s appeal to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council did not accept the new address he provided on his child’s school admissions application form. Instead, the Council used his previous address held on file to allocate a school place for his child. This meant Mr X’s child did not get a place at his preferred school.
2. Mr X said it caused distress.
3. Mr X would like his child to be offered a place at his preferred school.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
5. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Statutory guidance about school admissions and appeals can be found in The School Admissions Code and School Admissions Appeals Code. Both are published by the Department of Education.
9. A parent has the right to appeal the admission authority’s decision to not offer a school place for their child. The appeal is decided by an independent panel. A panel must decide whether the needs of the child outweigh any prejudice to school admitting them.
10. The Council is the admission authority for the school. It refused Mr X’s application for a place for entry in September 2026. Mr X appealed this decision.
11. The case documents show Mr X was able to make submissions and attend the appeal hearing. The evidence shows the panel considered the reasons Mr X put forward about how the school was best suited to meet his child’s needs. This included Mr X’s position about the address he entered on his application in December 2025.
12. Mr X said the Council should have used his new address submitted on his application when deciding which school place to allocate to his child and not the old one the admissions team had on file. The Council said at the point of application, Mr X acknowledged responsibility for updating his address with the admissions team. It said instructions to correctly update an address were available in the information booklet and Mr X confirmed he had read this information as part of the application process.
13. Furthermore, the admission team emailed Mr X in January 2026 to ask for proof of address. Mr X said he did not receive this email, but the Council confirmed it used the email address on his application form. It was not until June 2026 that Mr X provided proof of address. This was after the 31 January 2025 deadline.
14. During the appeal hearing, the panel considered Mr X’s comments about the different address. It decided the Council had made Mr X aware of his responsibility to provide proof of address by 31 January 2025 and that failing to do so may affect the school allocated. The panel decided the evidence put forward in support of Mr X’s appeal was not strong enough to outweigh the prejudice admitting his child would cause the school. The panel refused the appeal. It wrote to Mr X and explained its decision.
15. Mr X disagrees with the panel’s decision but there is no evidence of fault in the way the panel members considered Mr X’s reasons and used their judgement. Where there is no fault in how a decision was made, we cannot criticise that decision or substitute an alternative view.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman