Council guilty of maladministration over "eccentric" school admission appeals panel

The Local Government Ombudsman has found a county council guilty of maladministration in a case where an independent panel took an “eccentric and idiosyncratic” approach to handling admission appeals for a grammar school.

In a report Anne Seex said the conduct of admission appeals organised by Kent County Council on behalf of Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School was “seriously flawed”.

The LGO launched the investigation after receiving complaints from six parents about how their appeals had been dealt with.

Seex said the appeal panel had become “hopelessly muddled” in its decision-making. It had also failed to manage hearings, take account of parents’ needs or record its reasoning.

She 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 Ombudsman found maladministration by Kent 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 LGO investigation found that there had been “numerous” instances of maladministration by the panel, which had:

• 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 great offence by the chair’s inappropriate and irrelevant comments about his experience of part of the Middle East
• tried to deter one child’s parents from arguing that the school had not proven that admitting more children would create prejudice
• 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.

Seex said the governors had responded swiftly to the Ombudsman’s concerns and offered fresh hearings for the six girls whose parents had complained.

The LGO said she was satisfied that a decision by the governors not to use the council to provide a panel and clerk for future appeals was an adequate and appropriate remedy for the injustice.

One parent had also complained about the way Kent administered the admission tests that her daughter sat as part of the admission arrangements.

The girl had scored significantly lower in a test that had been subject to disruption. Although she passed the tests, she did not get a place because of the distance between her home and the grammar school. Her score in the disrupted test meant that she did not qualify for one of 14 governor places, which are allocated by score.

The LGO found that Kent had failed to administer the tests properly and had no policy or procedure to deal with the situation. The council had apologised and, as the appeal panel decided to give the daughter a place at the school, the Ombudsman considered this to be an appropriate remedy for the injustice.

The LGO issued a number of recommendations to Kent because of her concerns that the maladministration in the report might happen again. These were that the local authority:

• 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.

A spokesman for Kent said: "We acknowledge that one of the panels did make some mistakes and we offer our sincere apologies to those families involved. However, none of the children concerned were disadvantaged as a result of this.”

He pointed out that the number of appeals for places in Kent schools is the largest in the country, with independent panels considering approximately 2,300 appeals last year.

The spokesman added: “Panel members are volunteers who are given training by KCC. We take the training of clerks and panel members very seriously because we appreciate how complex school admissions can be. Representatives from the Local Government Ombudsman have attended and contributed to some training sessions in the past and we hold regular meetings with the Ombudsman’s office to review current practice.

“On this occasion it is clear that the high standards expected of the panel were not met. We respect the findings of the Local Government Ombudsman and are addressing, where appropriate, the recommendations in the report.”

The spokesman said that, as the incidents complained about had happened 14 months ago, a lot of training and development had already taken place. He added: “Panel members are committed to providing an efficient and professional service in what can be difficult circumstances.”

Philip Hoult