Admissions

Admission Appeals Update

CES Guidance - School Admission Appeals during Coronavirus

School Admission Appeal Hearings during the Coronavirus Outbreak

The government has passed new legislation regarding how appeals will be heard during the current lockdown. This can be found at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/446/made. The legislation came into effect on 24th April 2020 will stay in place until 30th September 2022.

With regards to the appeal hearings themselves, the new legislation states that:

Where a panel member withdraws due to a reason related to Covid then the appeal can continue with at least two panel members without having to have a particular mix of Lay and Education members;
If it’s the Chair of the panel who withdraws, the admission authority must appoint one of the two remaining panel members as Chair (or arrange for the Clerk to appoint one;
Where it is not possible for the appeal to be held in person then it can be held using remote access provided –
- The parties are able to fully present their case;
- Each participant has access to the electronic means so that they can hear and be heard and (if using video) see and be seen throughout the hearing;
- The panel considers that the appeal is capable of being heard fairly and transparently.
If any of the above points are not met, panel members may make their decision based on the written information submitted;
If it is considered on the written information submitted, the panel must ensure that the parties are able to fully present their case in order for the panel to make a decision on an appeal which is fair and transparent;
Decisions must be sent to all parties within 7 days wherever possible;
All appeals, whether submitted on time or not, must be heard as soon as is reasonably practicable.

Therefore, moving forward, schools will need to work very closely with the appeals Clerk that they appoint to ensure that everything contained within the legislation is covered and all processes are put in place to ensure that the appeal hearings can go ahead by video conferencing and parents are offered guidance and support to ensure that their appeal is heard fairly and that they can access the hearing. These changes are involving a lot of additional work and responsibility for Clerks to ensure that the process, particularly around video conferencing, is well managed and appeals go ahead in line with the legislation and the School Admission Appeals Code. Please do all that you can to support your Clerks. For appeals to work well it is going to require a degree of flexibility, understanding and co-operation, but I’m sure working together they will be successful.

IMPORTANT
If you have appeals requests submitted and appeal hearings need to be arranged, please do not do this using any guidance or information that you have ever been sent to you before today. PLEASE DESTROY ANY APPEAL GUIDANCE AND PANEL MEMBERS LISTS THAT YOU HAVE HAD SENT TO YOU IN THE PAST. I have updated all of the guidance to schools and new model letters/governors’ statements and information for parents to take into account the changes detailed above. There have been changes to the lists of panel members available to hear appeals and not every panel member has the technology or resources to hear appeals via video conferencing. If you need to arrange an independent appeal hearing, please email me directly to request the most up to date guidance documents and lists for Clerks and panel members. It is essential that appeals are arranged in line with this new legislation in order for schools to be protected against a complaint of maladministration after a hearing has taken place.

I hope that all of this is clear and helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries or to request appeal guidance to organise your appeals and as soon as any further DfE guidance is available I will make this available to you.

Rebecca Tonks
Governance Adviser
Birmingham Diocesan Education Service
October 2021