The conduct of admission appeals organised by Kent County Council on behalf of Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School was seriously flawed.

The conduct of admission appeals organised by Kent County Council on behalf of Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School was seriously flawed, finds Local Government Ombudsman, Anne Seex. In her report, issued today, she found that the appeal panel became hopelessly muddled in its decision making. It failed to manage hearings, take account of parents’ needs or record its reasoning.

The Ombudsman said: “The appeal panel’s eccentric and idiosyncratic consideration of the appeals and poor time keeping caused uncertainty for most of the parents who complained to me.”

The School Governors responded swiftly to the Ombudsman’s concerns and offered fresh hearings for six girls whose parents had complained. The Governors will not use the Council to provide a panel and clerk for future appeals. The Ombudsman is satisfied that this was an adequate and appropriate remedy for the injustice, and appreciates the Governors’ positive approach.

The Ombudsman found maladministration by the Council because it had:

• provided the School’s Governors with a clerk and an appeal panel who proved incapable of fulfilling the requirements of the statutory School Admission Appeals Code 2009
• contravened the Code by sending decision letters from its Legal and Democratic Services Section with the facsimile signature of the panel clerk, and
• substituted standard decision letters chosen by its Legal and Democratic Services section for those agreed by the panel.

The Ombudsman found that the panel:

• failed to manage the hearings efficiently or effectively or take account of the needs of parents during the hearings
• failed to adequately record its proceedings, and particularly the advice it obtained during the hearings
• caused one parent offence by the chair’s inappropriate and irrelevant comments about his experience of part of the Middle East
• showed an irrelevant and inappropriate interest in some parents’ private affairs and the chair wasted valuable time in seeking discussions with them after the hearing
• adjourned during one parent’s hearing to seek advice without informing the parent of that advice
• went beyond its role and remit in commenting critically during the same parent’s hearing on the School’s admissions manager going into applicants’ homes, and
• failed to complete its decision making and left it to the Council’s Legal and Democratic Services section.

One parent complained about the way the Council administered the admission tests that her daughter sat as part of the admission arrangements. One of the tests was disrupted and her daughter’s score in that test was significantly lower than in others. This meant that, although she passed the tests, she did not get a place because of the distance between her home and the School. The Ombudsman found that the Council failed to administer the tests properly and had no policy or procedure to deal with the situation. The Council apologised and, as the appeal panel decided to give the daughter a place at the School, the Ombudsman considers this to be an appropriate remedy for the injustice.

The Ombudsman is concerned that the maladministration by the Council identified in this report could recur and cause significant injustice to other parents. She recommends the Council to:

• consult on and introduce a procedure for reviewing incidents or errors affecting selective testing together with a system for retesting
• report on how its test invigilators will be trained and supported to deal efficiently and calmly with untoward events during testing;
• report on how it can ensure that any clerking and appeals service that it provides is effective and complies with statutory requirements, and
• instruct its Legal and Democratic Services Section to ensure that all letters from appeal panels are checked and signed by the clerk of that panel.

Report ref nos 09 010 311 et al

Article date: 07 July 2011