Agenda item

[To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Children and Families. Report of the  Interim Assistant Director for Schools and learning.]This report   seeks agreement for:

 1) The proposed admission arrangements for entry to school in the academic year 2017/18 for Haringey’s community and voluntary controlled (VC), nursery, infant, junior, primary, secondary and sixth form settings.

 2)The proposed admissions arrangements for in-year applications to community schools in Haringey 2017/18. In-year applications are applications which are received at any point throughout the year other than for reception or secondary school transfer.

3)Haringey’s In-Year Fair Access Protocol (IYFAP) which all schools and academies must follow.

4)The co-ordinated scheme for admission to school in 2017/18 for the reception and secondary transfer admissions rounds.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Families introduced the report which set out the proposed admission arrangements for the school year 2017/18 in respect of the borough’s community and voluntary controlled schools. These arrangements are consulted upon annually. The most recent consultation included a proposal to restrict the sibling priority for primary schools to those children living within 0.5 miles of the school if the family were to move home between admission of the first child to the school and any subsequent children. This proposal had been included to allay concerns from residents that families were moving away from the local area but that younger siblings were still attending those schools and thereby preventing local children going to their local school.

Following the statutory consultation, which was carried out between 13 November 2015 and 31 December 2015, nearly 240 responses were received on the sibling priority proposal and the Cabinet Member advised that the responses were approximately 56% in favour and 44% against. The Cabinet Member further advised that an Equalities Impact Assessment (EQIA) was undertaken following the consultation and that the EQIA showed that there would be a disproportionate impact on certain protected characteristics and would effect people who would be moving for reasons other than out of choice. Attempts to maintain the proposal whilst managing the impact had proven unsuccessful due to the complications and the computerised nature of the application process for primary schools.

The Cabinet Member advised that, in addition, the demand for primary schools had levelled out this year and that there was still reception places available for N10 and N8 postcodes; hence the need to protect primary school places for people living locally had decreased. As a result, the report recommended that the Council would not proceed with amending the sibling priority criterion.

The Cabinet Member outlined that the Council were aware that there were a number of claims of people moving to the area and getting their first child into the school and then moving away from the area whilst their younger children continue to attend that school. The Council would also be taking other steps to ensure that siblings did not gain an unfair priority and there would be an anonymous whistle blowing provision on the Council’s website to investigate claims. The Cabinet Member stated that the Council would follow up on claims made through the whistle blowing website page and would take action.

The Leader stated that EQIA’s were conducted precisely to understand the unintended consequences of a decision and that this felt like the right decision to be taking in circumstances where a significant number of people could potentially be disadvantaged.

RESOLVED

1.    To agree the recommendation set out in this report not to proceed with a change to the sibling criterion for the borough’s primary community and VC schools;

2.    To determine the Council’s admission arrangements for the academic year 2017/18 as set out in Appendices 1- 6 of the report.  These appendices include a retention of  the existing sibling criterion for primary community and voluntary controlled (VC) schools for the academic year 2017/18 (Appendix 2 of the report); 

3.    To determine that the co-ordinated schemes for Reception and Year 7 admissions remain unchanged from 2016/17;

4.    To agree the in-year fair access protocol (IYFAP) as set out in Appendix 5 of the report to come into force from 1 March 2016

5.    To agree that the determined arrangements for all maintained primary and secondary schools in the borough are published on Haringey’s website by 15 March 2016 with an explanation of the right of parents, under the School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) Regulations 2012, to object to the Schools Adjudicator in specified circumstances^[1]. 

Reasons for decision

The School Admissions Code 2014 requires all admission authorities to determine admission arrangements every year, even if they had not changed from previous years and thus a consultation is not required. Regulation 17 of the School Admissions Regulations 2012 also required admission authorities to determine admission arrangements by 28 February in the determination year.

In addition, the Regulations required the admission authority (in this case the local authority) to publish on its website by 15 March in the determining year the determined arrangements of all maintained primary and secondary school and academies in the borough, advising the right to object to the Schools Adjudicator, where it was considered that the arrangement did not comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions code 2014.

Haringey consulted on its admission arrangements annually irrespective of whether or not there was a proposed change to the arrangements. This was to ensure transparency and openness on the contents of the admission arrangements and to allow parent/carers and other stakeholders to make representations which can then be considered as part of the determination of the arrangements.

This year the Council consulted on one material change to the admission arrangements for the borough’s primary community and voluntary controlled (VC) schools. This change is to the sibling over subscription criterion with the change seeking to limit admission of sibling(s) to any oversubscribed school if the home address changes between admission of the first child and subsequent child (ren) and that change is to a distance further than 0.5 miles when measuring home to school distance.  This change would only apply where the first child is on roll at the school on or after 1 September 2017.

The proposed change to the criterion was to seek  to ensure that local places are available for local families and to guard against any parent or carer that may seek to rent a home close to a school on a short term basis in an attempt secure a school place at that school, thereafter returning to their permanent address which is some distance from the school, and so limiting the number of places available to local children in future years when the sibling(s) of that first child are admitted under the current sibling criterion.

In beginning the consultation the Council was aware of the risk that the change might bring i.e.  That it may impact on those families where a change of address is outside of their control (e.g. if they are in temporary accommodation or are being evicted by a landlord) or due to an unforeseen change in circumstances necessitating a house move e.g. the breakdown of a relationship.  The Council was also aware that it could also potentially influence a family’s decision to move home for other more personal reasons such as a preference for a smaller or larger home.  An equalities impact assessment (EqIA) is included at Appendix 8 of the report and has ascertained that the proposed change will be likely to have an impact on protected group of race and sets out whether there are steps that can be taken to mitigate against such an impact.

Alternative options considered

Consultation on the proposed change to the sibling criterion arises as a result of views from parents and carers in the borough that local places should, as far as possible, be retained for families that continue to live locally to a school after their first child has been admitted on roll at that school. We have heard a number of concerns over several years from families who have told us that they have been unable to access a local school under the distance criterion because a proportion of its roll is filled with children of families who no longer live locally but who have benefited from the sibling criteria which prioritises admission for their second and any subsequent children. 

So as to seek wider views on whether a change to the sibling criterion should be made a decision was taken in October 2015 (via a Cabinet Member signing) to consult on a change that would ensure some retention of local places for local families by limiting admission of siblings when the family no longer lives in the area local to the school. We undertook to consider representations received through this consultation and to balance these alongside other material considerations, including the findings of an Equalities Impact Assessment and the continued supply of and demand for school places across the borough and any other measures we could enhance or introduce that would support the offer of places to families whose only or main residence is a local one. 

While there are other ways admission arrangements can influence the allocation of school places set out in the Schools Admissions Code 2014 (e.g. designated catchment areas or identified feeder schools) no alternative criterion were being considered at the time of the consultation or when writing this report.

There is a statutory requirement on all admission authorities to determine their admission arrangements each year and for those arrangements to be consulted on if there is a proposed change or at least once every 7 years if there has been no change in that period.