The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: A parent complained that the Council had unfairly denied his daughter a place at his preferred junior school despite the long time she had been on its waiting list, and that the independent admission appeal panel had wrongly refused his appeal for the school. But we do not have grounds to investigate these matters because there is no sign of fault by the Council or panel which caused the parent a significant injustice.
The complaint
The complainant, who I shall call Mr B, complained the school admission appeal panel unreasonably turned down his appeal about the refusal of a place for his daughter (‘C’) at his preferred junior school (‘the School’). In particular, Mr B felt the panel wrongly concluded that admitting C would cause prejudice to the School, relied on incorrect information from the Council about his contacts with it, and unduly favoured the Council’s case. Mr B also believed the Council had unfairly manipulated the School’s waiting list so that C did not get a place and was biased against him because he had complained about a member of its staff.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 an investigation if, for example, we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) We cannot question whether an admission appeal panel’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered the information Mr B provided with his complaint. I also took account of documents about Mr B’s appeal and information regarding the School’s waiting list, which were provided by the Council. In addition, I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Appeal panels must follow the law when considering an appeal for a junior school place. In particular, the panel must consider whether: the admission arrangements comply with the law; the admission arrangements were properly applied to the child in question.
It must then consider whether admitting another child would prejudice the education of others. If the panel finds there would be prejudice it must then consider the appellant’s arguments. If the panel decides the appellant’s case outweighs the prejudice to the school, it must uphold the appeal.
At the first stage, the panel for Mr B’s appeal decided that the School’s admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied in C’s case. The panel also agreed that admitting an extra child would cause prejudice to the School and the existing pupils. The School’s Published Admission Number was 90, and all 90 places in C’s year group had already been filled at the time of the appeal hearing.
But from the evidence provided I do not see sign of fault in the way the panel decided these matters in Mr B’s case. I consider that the panel was reasonably entitled to reach the conclusions it did based on the information presented to it at the appeal.
Mr B felt he had a strong case for C to be given a place at the School, despite any prejudice to the School. This was mainly because C’s sibling already went there and it was difficult for the family to manage the school run to two different sites.
Mr B was also unhappy the Council’s presenting officer incorrectly said at the hearing that he had sent a large number of emails to the Council’s admissions office in the previous month, and he felt the panel was unduly influenced by this misleading information. But having considered the appeal documents I saw no evidence to indicate that this issue played a part in the panel’s decision-making.
I suggest the panel may have exceeded its role in concluding that it would not be in C’s best interests to change junior schools when she would soon be moving on again to secondary school. This appears to have been a subjective view on its part which was not directly related to the cases made at the appeal.
However, the notes from the panel’s decision-making show that this issue was only one of the factors in its deliberations, and I am not convinced we could say that any fault in this respect gives grounds to question its overall decision.
Ultimately, at the second stage of the process, it was the panel’s job to reach its own view about the opposing cases, having weighed up the information it received from both sides at the appeal. But I consider the records from the hearing and the panel’s decision letter indicate that, overall, the panel carried out the balancing process appropriately and came to a decision it was reasonably entitled to reach based on all the information presented to it.
I also saw no other sign of fault in the way Mr B’s appeal was handled. In particular, it appears the hearing followed the process set out in the government’s School Admission Appeals Code and Mr B was given a suitable opportunity to make his case and question the other side. In addition, I did not see any evidence to suggest the panel showed undue favour to the Council’s case.
In the circumstances, I do not consider there is enough evidence of fault by the panel which caused injustice to Mr B to warrant us starting an investigation of his complaint in this respect.
The waiting list The government’s mandatory School Admissions Code says that waiting lists must be ranked in line with the school’s published oversubscription criteria, and priority must not be given to children based on the date they joined the list.
This means that position on the School’s list does not depend on waiting time, and a later applicant can take priority over someone already on the list if they rank higher under the oversubscription criteria. For instance, a child living in the School’s catchment area will take precedence over a child who, like C, lives outside the area. As a result applicants can move up or down the rankings over time as others join or leave the waiting list.
From the information provided I see no reason to doubt that the Council has correctly ranked C according to the School’s oversubscription criteria.
C has been on the School’s waiting list for 21 months. She has also been number one on the list at various times during that period. The Council says that six children have been admitted to her year group from the waiting list in that time. But the information the Council has provided about these admissions shows that on each occasion there was a vacancy, C was not at the top of the list at the time and the place went to a child with a higher priority than her under the oversubscription criteria.
On this basis I do not see there is evidence to suggest the Council has wrongly administered the School’s waiting list in C’s case or has unreasonably overlooked her when offers from the list have been made. I also see no sign of bias by the Council in this respect. As a result I consider we do not have grounds to pursue this part of Mr B’s complaint.
Final decision
We do not have reason to investigate Mr B’s complaint about the way the appeal panel dealt with his appeal for a place for his daughter at his preferred junior school, and the way the Council administered the school’s waiting list in his daughter’s case. This is because there is no sign that fault by the Council or panel has caused Mr B an injustice to warrant our further involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman