The Local Government Ombudsman is welcoming the Government’s commitment to ensuring school complaints and admissions processes are clear and fair for parents and children.

Today’s White Paper from the Department for Education, called Educational Excellence Everywhere, sets out a number of proposals for strengthening schools accountability, giving parents and members of the public the opportunity to take their concerns and complaints to an independent ombudsman.

One of these proposals includes making local authorities responsible for handling the administration of admissions appeals for all schools and academies, and creating a ‘single route for escalating any complaints about the maladministration of appeals’. The LGO is already the route for redress for people unhappy with the way a maintained school’s appeal panel has been carried out and has previously run a successful pilot project to look at complaints about the internal management of schools

Dr Jane Martin, Local Government Ombudsman, said:

“Our work has demonstrated the value of giving parents the right to approach an independent ombudsman about the way their complaints about schools are handled. We welcome the news that the Government plans to build upon this by making it simpler for parents of all schools to escalate their complaints.”

Article date: 17 March 2016