Lost appeal - help....

Thank you all.

I shall just have to let the wheels turn, and wait for the outcome then, and hope they will order a fresh appeal. I'm not sure I want to do a legal challenge, especially if the outcome remains along the same lines.

Panelchair that was my gut response to that bit too, so I'll incorporate it into my reply. It feels an 'off' way of interpreting what I put in the complaint, as I made no mention of details of other cases.

I'm exhausted with this.

Hi there!

I have had a response from the Education and Skills Funding Agency which seems to say they are going to investigate my appeal, although it doesn't explicitly state this. I've anonomised the letter, please do let me know if I've missed anything identifying.

"Based on the information you have provided, I have summarised your complaint as follows:

You believe that the panel did not take relevant information into account:

 Supporting evidence from J’s Child Psychiatrist.

 J’s mental and emotional health.

 History of domestic violence.

The School Admission Appeals Code (SAAC) states:
3.8 The panel must balance the prejudice to the school against the appellant’s case for the child to be admitted to the school. It must take into account the appellant’s reasons for expressing a preference for the school, including what that school can offer the child that the allocated or other schools cannot. If the panel considers that the appellant’s case outweighs the prejudice to the school it must uphold the appeal.

You state that the decision letter does not give clear reasons for the panel’s decision.

The SAAC states:

2.25 The panel must ensure that the decision is easily comprehensible so that the parties can understand the basis on which the decision was made. The decision letter must contain a summary of relevant factors that were raised by the parties and considered by the panel. It must also give clear reasons for the panel’s decision, including how, and why, any issues of fact or law were decided by the panel during the hearing.

1. You state that you did not receive the decision letter within a reasonable time after the hearing.

The SAAC states:
2.1 Admission authorities must set a timetable for organising and hearing appeals that:

d) ensures that decision letters are sent within five school days of the hearing wherever possible.

We will not investigate the following areas, since they are outside of our remit:

 You state that the decision is unreasonble. We can only investigate complaints about the setup of a panel or the process that it followed. Only the courts can overturn a panel’s decision, and you would need to seek legal advice on how to do this.

 You state that the panel upheld 3 appeals and feel that J had a stronger case. The Education & Skills Funding Agency are unable to consider the cases of other children.

Please reply to this email by 17 July 2018 confirming that you agree with the above summary. If you feel that it is inaccurate, please reply to this letter clearly explaining why, and how your amendments sit within our remit of investigation.

Once agreed, the complaint summary will not be changed, and I will use it as the basis for my investigation. This investigation will also include looking at the notes that the clerk took during the hearing, and any other relevant evidence that is submitted.

We expect to complete our process within 30 working days of receiving your agreement to the complaint summary, but this depends on the information received and whether further enquiries are needed. If there are any delays, we will keep you updated."

So I guess that I agree with the above, and they'll request all evidence and review it?

My concern is the time this will take, because they can't make the panel give him a place, so they'd have to recommend a second appeal is held. Which is even more time, and Sept 4th is close now. Is there any way to speed things up?

Any comments welcome. I'm going to formulate and send my reply this evening, so pile on in!

@Imchlibob
Thank you for pointing that out. How do I ask MNHQ to take it out and replace with just the word School?

Thank you prh47. I thought I'd got them all. Has it gone? I can't see it anywhere.

All your responses to my letter have gone into this, and I thank all of you very much. Please do let me have any comments. I'm going to post one last bit below, which was my answer to the final question on the complaint form.

How has this affected the outcome of the appeal?

The outcome of the failures detailed above is that our appeal was not upheld, and I believe that if the code had properly been followed and applied, in the spirit of balancing predjudice between a school and a vulnerable child, that the panel would and should uphold the appeal.

DS has been seriously disadvantaged by not having his appeal upheld. His mental health has deteriorated with the stress of not having a suitable school place for September.

The way the system works, it is coming up to 12 months since the admissions process began. The wait from the October deadline to the March 1st National Offer Day, was hard enough. Then the blow of finding out we didn't get any of our preferences, and had in fact got a school DS is very ill suited to.

Then we appeal, another long stretch till June, still not knowing and now very concerned that we won't have a school DS will be safe at. I do a lot of research and organise letters. DS's psychiatrist is concerned enough for DS's mental and emotional well-being that she wrote a detailed, comprehensive letter outlining her concerns. This was not a tick-boxing, whatever mum says, letter. It is categorically a professional letter from a Consultant Psychiatrist in which she explicitly states why THIS school, and no other will suit. My shock at realising this letter has been treated as if it doesn't exist is immense.

So now, I feel absolutely furious and frustrated and exhausted. The handling of the appeal, and the quality of the panel's response and decision, have been so poor, that I have lost my faith in the appeals system. The system is there precisely to ensure students such as DS are not disadvantaged, but it has failed one of the most disadvantaged of them all.

I feel the appeal panel did not follow the appeal code due to the following

1. Not taking evidence into account.

I submitted a letter from DS's Consultant Child Psychiatrist, which contains her reasons why she believes that my choice of school for DS is the correct one. It is a detailed and compelling letter that clearly sets out that school specifically, for reasons unique to school,
is where DS needs to be to protect and ensure DS's mental and emotional health.

My very first question to the panel was 'Have you read the submitted evidence?', to which all said yes. On the basis of that answer I proceeded with my appeal, and referred to the letter as a matter which was taken into account. DS's history of domestic violence and mental health issues are complex and longstanding. It made no sense to waste the panel's time reading the letter to them.

The decision letter I received makes only a passing reference to this evidence as 'we note the supporting evidence from CAMHS'. It does not address the points the psychiatrist made, and neither does it explain on what basis they felt able to dismiss or ignore the views of a medical consultant. According to my decision letter, there is no evidence the panel considered the psychiatrist's submission, and without evidence of this consideration there exists a procedural flaw.

DS has therefore been disadvantaged by this panel by not taking evidence into account.

1. Not giving clear reasons for a decision.

The appeal panel's decision letter is basically an account of what was said during the hearing, followed by three lines.

'Although the Appeal Panel has sympathy for your case, it decided that the facts of the case were not sufficiently strong to outweigh the predjudice that would be caused to the school by admitting any further pupils.'

Not only did they not give clear reasons, they did in fact not give ANY reasons, nor any clear insight into how DS's case was considered by them and their decision reached.

1. The panel did not follow the appeals code.

I attended a two part appeal. Part 1 held on 4th June 2018, and part 2, DS's specific hearing, on the 5th June.

The last appeal (of 60 odd) was heard by the panel on 12th June.

I was given a verbal decision 2 days later by telephone on the 14th June.

On Monday 18th June I phoned the office of the Clerk to say I was unhappy with the decision and needed to have the official letter quickly. I was promised a call-back to discuss this, and was told my letter would be dealt with first.

There was no call back, and no letter.

On Monday 25th June I phoned the office of the clerk, extremely unhappy with their lack of response. My decision letter was emailed to me immediately. This was my first opportunity to find out WHY the appeal had not succeeded, now 20 days after the hearing date.

The following day, the 26th June, the actual letter arrived. It had been posted the previous Wednesday, the 20th, but posted by VELOPOST. It took 6 days to be delivered.

I therefore believe that the appeal was not carried in a suitably timely or responsive manner. For parents who are anxious, or who find, like myself, that they need to take matters a step further, this delay is unconscionable and unfair. The need to establish a suitable school place by September, for an emotionally vulnerable child, is overwhelming in itself.

The admissions code was therefore not followed by failing to meet communication deadlines in an appropriate manner or timescale.

1. The Wednesbury Principle.

This last point is regarding irrationality and unreasonableness. The Wednesbury principle states

'A reasoning or decision is Wednesbury unreasonable (or irrational) if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable person acting reasonably could have made it.'
(Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation (1948) 1 KB 223).

I have not had a single person, either family, friend or professional, who has read the evidence say that they think this decision is reasonable.
In the event, the appeal panel upheld 3 appeals, meaning they had 3 children they felt had a stronger, more compelling claim than DS's. I find it impossible to imagine how this could be true. If they had refused all appeals, on the basis that they literally couldn't fit another child on site, that's one thing. But as 3 appeals were upheld there is no question but that DS's should have been.

I therefore find the panel's decision Wednesbury Unreasonable, i.e. not the decision anyone reasonable would have made.

I respectfully ask that my evidence is reviewed and this matter is given proper consideration.

This post was edited by MNHQ

Hello all. I bring a small update.

My decision letter arrived last Tuesday, 21 days after my hearing and 14 days after the final hearing was held.

It, as we have established, failed to properly consider all the evidence, failed to show how they reached their final decision, and the letter itself arrived outside the time limits of the admissions code. As a result, their decision appears unreasonable, even nonsensical and baffling.

One major worry has been resolved. DS had ADHD meltdowns over even the idea of visiting his allocated school, but his SENCO took him out of school herself to visit it. As a result he attended their induction day, and seemed OK. It's a great relief to know that at least come September he will actually go to a school, rather than go into a screaming meltdown and refuse to leave the house.

It is still very much the wrong school for him though. Last week my exhaustion triumphed and I dissolved into immobility. I wanted it all just to stop. However, I've pulled myself together, and today I filled out the online complaint form for academy appeals and submitted it.

Their acknowledgement email asks that any further info is emailed to them separately. I figured I'll put my complaint on here, and see what you think, and send a supplementary email if it's needed. Hope that's ok.