Agenda item

[Report of the Interim Deputy Chief Executive. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Children and Families.]Following public consultation held between October and December 2017, Cabinet is asked to determine the admission arrangements for admission to community nursery, primary, junior and secondary schools and to St Aidan’s Voluntary Controlled school and for sixth form admission for the year 2019/20.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Families introduced the report, which sought approval to proposed admission arrangements for the school year 2019/20. These arrangements were in respect of the borough’s community and voluntary controlled (VC) schools.

This year the proposed admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled (VC) schools included a proposal to introduce an additional oversubscription criterion for children of teaching staff to follow after the sibling criterion (such a criterion to be limited to permanent teaching staff who have been employed at the school for at least two years at the time of application, and limited to one place for each form of entry in any year.

This criteria had been added following consultation with parents, teachers and schools as set out at part 6 of the attached report and reflected in the consultation findings at appendix 8. The aim of this additional criteria was to support schools facing increasing challenges in recruiting and retaining teachers.

RESOLVED

1. To consider and take into account the feedback from the consultation undertaken which is set out in summary at paragraphs 6.6-6.23. All the representations are set out in Appendix 8 of this report.

2. To consider and take into account the equalities impact assessment of the proposals on protected groups at appendix 7.

3. To agree the recommendation set out in this report to proceed with a material change to the oversubscription criteria for all Haringey community and VC schools for the 2019/20 year of entry. This change proposes an additional oversubscription criterion to prioritise children of staff after the sibling criterion.

4. To determine the Council’s admission arrangements for the academic year 2019/20 as set out in Appendices 1 – 4.

5. To agree the in-year fair access protocol (IYFAP) as set out in Appendix 5 to come into force from 1 March 2018.

6. To agree that the determined arrangements for all maintained primary and secondary schools in the borough are published on the Council’s website by 15 March 2018 with an explanation of the right of any person or body, 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 have not changed from previous years. Regulation 17 of the School Admissions Regulations 2012 also requires admission authorities to determine admission arrangements by 28 February in the determination year.

In addition, the Regulations require 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 is considered that the arrangement do not comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code 2014.

The Council consults on its admission arrangements annually irrespective of whether or not there is a proposed change to the arrangements. This is to ensure transparency and openness on the contents of the admission arrangements and to allow all stakeholders to make representations, which can then be considered as part of the determination of the arrangements.

The School Admissions Code 2014 permits all admission authorities to include priority for children of staff in their oversubscription criteria, following the appropriate consultation process. At paragraph 1.39 the Code confirms that oversubscription criteria to children of staff can apply in two circumstances – a) where the member of staff has been employed at the school for two or more years at the time of which the application for admission to the school is made, and/ or b) the member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage.

The Council consulted on a proposal to introduce an additional oversubscription criterion to prioritise children of staff after the sibling criterion. The proposed change to the criterion seeks to assist schools in recruiting and retaining staff by prioritising the admission of child(Ren) of staff to the school. Some local academies and a voluntary aided school as well as schools in neighbouring boroughs currently give priority to children of staff and extending this to Haringey community schools may help the schools to compete for the right staff for their school in the current competitive recruitment climate.

Before deciding to publicly consult the Council carried out an informal consultation with all Haringey community and VC schools, earlier this year to explore whether or not there was support from these schools for an additional oversubscription criterion for staff children. The results from the informal consultation indicated that the majority of Haringey community and VC schools support an additional oversubscription criterion, which gives priority to children of staff.

In beginning the public consultation, we were aware of the risk that the change might bring i.e. that it may disadvantage a small number of families by limiting the number of places that can be offered to local residents at Haringey’s oversubscribed community and VC schools.

Research from a neighbouring borough (Enfield) who introduced a children of staff criterion in their primary community school’s oversubscription criteria in 2013 showed that fewer than one percent (1%) of places have been offered each year under this criterion. In the Cabinet Member signing report (October 2017) that recommended this consultation, we undertook some comparative modelling for Haringey community and VC schools and our analysis shows that we could expect a similar proportion of offers to be made under this criterion. It was concluded that the number of children falling under this criterion is likely to be very small and there is no evidence to suggest that the number will be anything other than single figures across the borough’s community schools in the coming years.

An equalities impact assessment (EqIA) is included at Appendix 7 and has identified a disproportionate impact based on gender and ethnicity, likely to favour women and white staff members. However, the overall impact would be low because of the very small proportion of offers likely to be made under this criterion.

Alternative options considered

Consultation on the proposed change to the oversubscription criterion was carried out in response to a small number of representations received last year from schools and teachers through our statutory public consultation on the proposed admission arrangements for community and VC schools for the academic year 2018/19. These representations all focused on introducing an additional oversubscription criterion that gives priority to children of teaching staff employed at the school.

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.