Is this admission fraud? AIBU to report it?

[grammarmom]

Here's the situation.

We live in a grammar school catchment area that gets smaller every year. When we bought our house several years ago, it was very comfortably within the catchment for an excellent local grammar (very high in the league tables), and oh boy was it reflected in the price. Now we're right on the boundary. Among the thirty or so houses around us, some children got in last year and some didn't, literally a difference of a few yards.

Another child on our street, who is in the same class as my DC, only just passed the 11+ (a few points above the pass threshold). We live on the same road, but they are about 50 yards further from the school gate. Based on last year's distances, my child would likely get a place while theirs wouldn't.

Over the weekend, during a sleepover, the child mentioned that her mother has now rented a house much closer to the school to secure a higher priority for admission. The tenancy was apparently signed one day before the cut-off date, making it "legal" for admission purposes. She still owns their original home, but the story being presented is that relatives who were previously "homeless" will now live there free of charge, and all bills and utilities have been transferred into those relatives' names (I strongly suspect that the mother will in fact pay these bills as those relatives are penniless).

She's even moved the children's belongings to the rented property and makes them spend nights there (they hate it). There's no doubt that once the school place is obtained, they will move right back.

This effectively pushes my child down the priority list and means they may now miss out.

Would this constitute admissions fraud? It feels incredibly unfair that someone with £40k to spare for rent can effectively buy their way into a top grammar school, especially when their child didn't perform particularly well in the exam (despite being tutored for hours every day).

Should I report this? I have no more detail apart from what this child told me (and they obviously weren't too sure about some aspects of it due to age).

The victim in this scenario is the child who is 150 on the list, and gets bumped to 151 (and now misses out on a grammar education) due to this short-term faked “permanent residency” in the catchment area.

yes, this framing is fair IMO!

How do you know you are correct in your presumptions OP? You don't know any of the details for sure, do you.
And even if the story is correct, another person who wasn't feeling personally invested might well say that she was doing a very moral thing, providing housing for her refugee relatives.
And as for your outrage at "the unfairness of it all"...get a life.

That's assuming a grammar school education is the best thing for them. In lots of cases (see crazy parents) children are coached and end up in a school where they struggle because it is what the parent wants.

The objective test of whether a child is good enough for the grammar school, in OP's area, is whether or not they attained the pass mark. Which both children did, in the case of this thread

As the applications aren't ranked by score, the child next door to the school and number 1 on the list may have squeaked a pass or waltzed through with one hand tied behind their back.

It’s possibly worth giving my experience of a desirable school that was the target of a lot of ‘playing fast and loose with admissions rules.’

There was something of a frenzy around it in the ‘peak’ years - a sort of desperation that the catchment was shrinking, that ‘everyone’ was playing the system - that fed into a spiralling increase in unscrupulous practices.

The school and LA embarked on quite a high profile campaign. There were some notable removals, some property blacklisting, and basically very clear messaging that said ‘this behaviour is fraud, it’s disadvantaging less well off families who live on the edges of the catchment, we don’t want it and we will be militant in identifying it and acting against it.’

The result was a much more calm, predictable and orderly situation. The catchment stabilised, to the full extent of its drawn boundaries. People could rely on their house being stably ‘in’ and so didn’t fight to move ever closer, and the house price gradients near the school became shallower. Almost all potential fraud was identified before places are allocated, and it became much less necessary for people to report, as the behind-the-scenes processes became smoother and more sophisticated.

There were other factors at play, as well, but it was interesting that a clear crackdown made admissions so much more predictable year on year.

This is too stupid for words. Do you take that view of all aspects of fraud, or only admissions fraud? Anyone is free to report their suspicions whether they have personal involvement or not, in the same way you are free to report seeing your neighbour's bike being stolen,.whether they occasionally let you use it or not.

One of the definitions of the word 'victim' is 'someone who has been hurt by the actions of someone else'. A.child has been denied a school place to which they were entitled by a child who isn't. The OP's child might not be the victim here, we can't say for sure, but wherever there is an incident of proven admissions fraud someone's child is the victim of that. That is a simple fact, you 'agreeing' with it is neither here nor there as schools, LAs and even courts have all agreed with it.

there as schools, LAs and even courts have all agreed with it.

lol no they haven't

Anyone is free to report their suspicions whether they have personal involvement or not

They are "free" to of course. But it is neither OP's duty nor business to do so.

No they haven't:

There have been a couple of (very rare) criminal prosecution cases against parents for schools admissions fraud , but they have involved the falsification of documents.

Apparently In 2009, a London mother was charged under the Fraud Act 2006 for allegedly using a false address to get her son a place at a state primary school. The case was widely reported as possibly the first of its kind.

the prosecution was dropped after legal advice indicated that the law might not cover such cases — specifically, that it might be hard to prove a “gain” or “loss” (as required under fraud law)

Buying a house in catchment is not admissions fraud, nor is renting in catchment if you do not own a property. However, it is known that some parents will buy or rent a house in catchment, get their oldest into their preferred school then move away, relying on sibling priority to get places for their younger child. To combat this, increasing numbers of admission authorities are removing sibling priority if the family moves away from the school.

Renting a house in catchment whilst owning a property elsewhere in the area is admissions fraud in most LAs. However much some posters on this thread want to treat this is being the same as buying a house near the school, the reality is that, unlike buying a house, this is against the rules. If you don't like it, campaign to change the rules but don't encourage people to break the rules and take places away from the children who should have got them.

If parents try to break the rules by renting a property whilst owning another, it is likely they will be caught when the LA checks school applications against their Council Tax records. If this happens, the LA will generally use the address of the house the parents own without notifying the parents. However, a proportion of applications using false addresses are only caught after the child has started at school. When this happens, the child will normally lose their school place and, instead of getting the place they would have got if the parents had been honest, they are offered a place at the nearest school with places available, which is likely to be an unpopular school the parents wanted to avoid.

Whilst fraud is a crime, prosecutions for admissions fraud are vanishingly rare. In most cases, the LA take the view that the child not getting a place at the preferred school is enough punishment. However, a trainee conveyancer was convicted in 2023 and received a suspended jail sentence.

Yes, they have. Whilst prosecutions for fraud are rare, some cases have gone to judicial review. Parents have always lost. @thing47 is correct. Schools, LAs and the courts have all agreed.

However, a trainee conveyancer was convicted in 2023 and received a suspended jail sentence.

That’s interesting PRH, thanks!

Renting a house in catchment whilst owning a property elsewhere in the area is admissions fraud in most LAs.

Except this isnt true at all; the reality is much more nuanced than that:

Please reference a case that has been criminally prosecuted that involved simply renting a property in catchment- eg not something like forging / falsifying documents.

Prosecution isn’t the point, though, is it? The penalty is the child losing / not being given their school place, and that is done by LAs and not courts.

Exactly 👍

The pp I was in conversation with said that it was a "crime" with a "victim" (compared it to reporting theft- another compared it to reporting child abuse!)
I said it wasn't a crime and not comparable.
That was what this particular exchange was about.
It's not a crime with a victim. It's an administrative/ civil issue concerning school admissions bureaucracy- a system which is fundamentally inequitable whatever way you look at it. "Fairness" really doesn't come into it.

https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/trainee-conveyancer-used-skills-in-school-place-fraud

interesting article on the case referenced by prh

Again this involved forging/ falsifying documents which is what made it criminally prosecutable:

There is a victim, though - the child who was not given a place that was rightfully theirs.

And the redress is that they are given their place, while the fraudulently-obtained place is taken away. A rather neat ‘punishment fitting the offence’.

Yeh I disagree for reasons above.

Is admissions fraud the only fraud you regard as ‘acceptable’? Or do you apply the same reasoning to eg benefits fraud?

So how would you refer to the child deprived of their place through fraud? ‘The unfortunate sufferer’? ‘The wrongly deprived’? ‘The child negatively affected’?

the admissions process isn't based on fairness, it's determined by who can afford to pay a premium for their housing . There are no children more or less deserving of a place a that school. Objectively speaking, The "deprivation" "misfortune " and "suffering" of OP's child if he doesn't get a place is no greater or more worthy of consideration than the "suffering" of any other child who wanted that place but missed out

It may be more nuanced in your mind. It is not in the minds of most LAs. If you own a property in the area, that is the address you must use for admissions purposes. Using a rented address, even if you claim you are living there, is classed as admissions fraud.