PLC Public Sector reports:
It’s that time of year again when the parents find out which schools their children will attend. The BBC reports that last year almost one in five children was refused a place at their first choice school. With many parents now appealing and instructing lawyers to act on their behalf, local authority lawyers are likely be increasingly called upon to offer guidance to their area’s admission authorities and appeal panels.
Given the restrictive grounds of appeal, it is difficult to see how instructing lawyers should assist parents; after all they have an opportunity to set out the reasons for their preferences in their original application form. However, a recent report for RISE from the London School of Economics suggests that the admissions process is confusing for parents, in spite of the requirement that admissions authorities’ processes and criteria for determining school places “are clear in the sense of being free from doubt and easily understood”.
Are lawyers simply helping parents understand and guiding them through what is becoming an increasingly contentious process? Or are they encouraging appeals by providing false hope to parents who believe their right to express a “preference” is a right to have a “choice”?
It is difficult to see how, for example, a lawyer could advance the case of a child who has been denied a place in an infant class unless it emerges that the admissions authority had acted unlawfully, unreasonably or had failed to correctly apply its own admissions criteria; notwithstanding compelling personal reasons for the parents’ preference for that school.
The Code also recognises this “admission authorities should ensure that information is available to parents on the limited chances of success of such appeals”.
Yet we have heard of several cases of appeals for places to which the infant class size legislation applies in which the parents had no idea of the limited basis on which a panel can overturn an admission authority’s decision and perhaps would not have appealed had they known.
The increasingly legalistic nature of the admissions process is reflected in the new School Admission Appeals Code, which has applied to all decisions communicated to parents since 1 March 2008. It requires all panel members to be trained on the Admissions Regulations, as amended, as well as the Code and equalities legislation. It is assumed that such training will be provided by the admission authority, though there does not seem to be any reason why it could not be bought in. Admission authorities will need to give serious consideration to the content of their training programmes to avoid any claims that a panel’s decision-making was flawed due to a lack of appropriate training. A difficulty is that neither the Regulations nor the Code detail the precise content of the training for the panel members or the clerk.
In addition to receiving training, both the panel and the clerk must have access to legal advice, the Code suggests “it would make sense for the admission authority and appeals administrator to seek any necessary legal advice from separate sources (though both could be within the local authority’s legal department).”
A situation may therefore arise where, in addition to the panel members, parents (and sometimes the child), the parents’ supporter (such as a locally elected politician) and the presenting officer, 3 separate legal advisers are involved in an appeal. The support provided by the local authority both in training the panel members and providing advice during the appeals becomes increasingly important.
We will soon launch the Children’s Services section of our site which will include guidance on School Admissions as well as case law updates and training materials for admission appeals and exclusion appeals panel members.