Decision report 201200879

Summary

The council proposed to change the catchment area of the primary school that Mrs C's child attends. The proposed changes meant that children from Street X would in future attend a different primary when starting school. Mrs C lives in Street X, and had expected that her second child would go to the same school as her first, so she was unhappy with the proposals and contributed to the consultation on them. The council's education executive, however, decided to accept the proposals, although with some alterations. The alterations meant that Street Y would remain in the school's original catchment area, but not Street X.

Mrs C felt this was unfair and complained to the council. She complained that they had failed to adequately inform directly affected parents of the proposed changes and had failed to adequately consult members of the public about the decision to retain the catchment area of Street Y. She further complained that the chief executive had failed to give an adequate response to her complaint that the decision to retain the catchment area of Street Y was unfair to pupils in Street X, where circumstances were the same.

We did not uphold Mrs C's complaints. Our investigation found that the council's method of informing directly affected parents of the proposed changes was reasonable, as was the decision that no further consultation was required about the decision to retain the catchment area of street Y. The chief executive had explained that the decisions on the proposals were taken by the education executive following consideration of all submissions to the consultation, and the council officer report on the outcome of the consultation. We found this to have been an adequate response to Mrs C's complaint.