Written question WQ93240

The school admissions authority (the local authority in respect of community and voluntary controlled schools and the governing body in respect of voluntary aided and foundation schools) is responsible for setting admission arrangements and oversubscription criteria for maintained schools in Wales.

In undertaking their school admissions functions, admission authorities must act in accordance with the mandatory requirements of the School Admissions Code and the School Admission Appeals Code and have regard to the guidance also contained in those Codes.

When the Welsh Government is made aware of a complaint that a local authority is not meeting its statutory duties, they would correspond with that authority in order to understand the full circumstances and whether there has indeed been a failure to meet their statutory duties. If there was such a failure the Welsh Government would normally seek to resolve the matter informally and seek assurances that the problem would be rectified and by when. In many instances that is enough to resolve the matter to the satisfaction of all concerned and there is no need to take further action.

In other cases, it may be necessary for the Welsh Ministers to consider exercising their powers of intervention in Part 2 of the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013. The 2013 Act sets out a number of grounds which if established would enable the Welsh Ministers to issue the warning notice to a local authority. The warning notice sets out what the local authority has done wrong, the steps that it must take to rectify the problem and by when. If the local authority does not comply with warning notice, then the Welsh Ministers may use one or more of their powers of intervention in Part 2 of the 2013 Act. There is a range of powers of intervention and, whilst much will depend on the circumstances of each case, a potential intervention would be a direction from the Welsh Ministers to the local authority to take/not take a specific action. Such directions have the force of law and can be enforced through the courts if necessary.

The use of the Welsh Ministers’ powers of intervention is referred to in the School Admission Appeals Code which advises that the Welsh Ministers can consider whether to exercise their powers of intervention if the admission authority has acted unreasonably in exercising functions in respect of the appeal process or has failed to discharge any legal duty in relation to that process, e.g., acting in breach of the mandatory provision of the Code.

Complaints may also be considered by the Public Service Ombudsman for Wales. The Ombudsman is an independent, impartial and free service that looks into complaints by members of the public where they have suffered hardship or injustice through maladministration or service failure on the part of a public body in Wales.