Late Grammar School offer: over the moon but stressed/flummoxed

[PermaShattered]

What a 3 days we've had - any insightful comments welcome. In short:

1. Our daughter was offered 3rd choice (her 11+ score was about 30 down on passmark);
2. 3rd school is outstanding but we appealed to 2nd choice school as was our preference;
3. Last Friday took calls from our local Ed admissions authority saying why appealed when have offer from grammar school?
4. Said we hadn't. She made further calls to other relevant admissions authority and came back and told us we definitely have an offer and it would be in post next day (Saturday just gone);
5. It duly arrived, and we posted our acceptance same day (they should have got it today) - verbal acceptance of place given by phone on Friday;
6. On Friday the Authority also withdrew both our place at 3rd choice school and our appeal to 2nd choice school;
7. Today i take a call from a friend whose daughter got substantially higher score than my DD - and she is 188 on waiting list;
8. I call our admissions auth to check they received our acceptance (they said still in posttray but will be dealt with this afternoon);
9. I query whether there could possibly an error and i'm told categorically 'no'. And if there was, we have a written offer, accepted it and they can't take it off our daughter;

10. Finally, my other DS is that grammar school.

I'm perplexed. What could be a possible explanation?

"The clerk?s role (in addition to that set out in paragraph 1.10 above) is to make the necessary administrative arrangements for hearings (unless a separate appeals administrator is appointed for this purpose); to notify the parties of the order of proceedings in advance of the hearing; to respond to queries from appellants in advance of the hearing, or to identify the appropriate person to provide a response; to be an independent source of advice (or to seek appropriate advice) on procedure and on admissions law;"

It's a policy difference.

No doubt Perma would have used the 3 day rule in her appeal. My understanding is that the panel must address each point raised and give a legal reason for knocking down each point.

That legal reason would be on the appeal denial letter but for whatever reason Perma seem to have skated over that in her updates

Thanks, Yellowtip, I realise that. I was asking prh47bridge what his view of that policy difference is.

Habba, the panel must address each point raised, but given that they say something factually untrue, I don't have much confidence.

Perma can choose what she shares. She has no duty to anyone on this thread.

I love it how it is assumed that the clerk gave incompetent legal advice to the panel simply because his/her interpretation of the law differs from that of the MN experts.

The panel had three options:

1.Conclude that the arrangements were carried out correctly and impartially.

2.Conclude that the arrangements were not carried out correctly and impartially, but that it didn't deprive the child of a place.

1. Conclude that the arrangements were not carried out correctly and impartially and that it deprived the child of a place.

In cases 1&2 they proceed to Stage Two. In case 3, the appeal is found in favour of the child and is concluded.

The panel used 'option 1'. We know that isn't true, because if it had been true, Perma's DD would not have a place at the school in writing.

That means that it's quite possible that they've made other errors if they couldn't even get this basic point right.

I don't know why we are rehashing all this maladminisistration , 3 days business. Yes, I admit to being equally guilty.

As Yellowtip summarised upthread, in BV it was ruled that parents with DCs who missed the cutoff were not given leave to appeal since not having reached the required standard the maladministration had not deprived these DCs of a place.

So all the other stuff about uniforms, cock up or maladmin is irrelevant.

Somewhere upthread the OP was asked why didn't she put more of an effort into prepping her DD. Her answer? She couldn't face the stress. With hindsight, she should have gone with that stress instead of this stress.

Habba, it's because this case centres around maladministration!!!!!

Also, the BV case concerned a pass mark - even if they only had 80 children who meet the pass mark, they could have left the other 44 places empty if they wanted to.

Perma's Academy could do no such thing - they had to fill all places with children in order of score.

Habba,

This is a maladministration case. The whole point here is that nothing else is relevant.

The appeals panel decided that it was not maladministration, and thus proceeded to other considerations - on which Perma failed her appeal.

Therefore, the sensible course is to refer to the EFA because an upheld judgement of non-maladministration in this case would set a completely new precendent, as it sets a new timeframe for a place to be withdrawn of 7 days (it might set that precedent only for selective schools, or it might set that precedent for all schools - that would be for further case law to establish).

The advice given by experts on this thread - e.g. prh [can't remember if admission has posted - she also is professionally involved in this area] is based on existing case law. Of course, the whole point about case law is that it evolves with time - and this may be a situation where new case law is set. That does not make advice from the experts 'wrong', in the same way that lawyers arguing from existing case law are not 'wrong', they are simply involved in setting new case law. To treat it as a 'game' with a 'score' is fairly distasteful - do you regard other legal cases in the same light, I wonder?

Oops. Thanks for pointing out the flaw in my reasoning. Sorry Yellowtip but I withdraw my comment about BV being the slam dunk for our argument.

Ok, let's get back to maladmin versus bog standard cock up

That's very gracious of you, Habba

I'm willing to investigate bog standard cock up if you can show the provision for it in the appeals code?

The other interesting thing here, is that it if the timeframe is not 'set' at 3 days, then we have to look at the facts of the case:

Perma had a phone call : 'Last Friday took calls from our local Ed admissions authority saying why appealed when have offer from grammar school?

1. Said we hadn't. She made further calls to other relevant admissions authority and came back and told us we definitely have an offer and it would be in post next day (Saturday just gone);"

The question I have is 'when is an offer an offer?' ie. is the offer date, the date the clock starts ticking, the date the offer is processed and logged on the system? Or is it the date that the parent gets the offer, ie. the date that 'legitimate expectation' begins?

(And I dispute that a low score 'on the day' denotes a total lack of the ability to thrive in a selective school - Habba, you yourself seem to be suggesting that by simply coaching to the test Little Perma might have got in, despite her actual ability being completely unchanged.

Admission to localish grammar schools to me are still creeping down the score sheet - again, they are simply ranked in order of score, and the admission score now being offered is very, very significantly below that offered at the beginning of March..

If you look carefully at the order of events, you will note that Perma know nothing of her DD's actual position on the 'waiting list' until AFTER she had received and responded to the written offer of a place. Until a chance conversation with a friend, she would have had nothing to indicate that the scores being offered places were now at her DD's level, and even after finding this out woiuld have had no reason not to assume that some mistake in the marking of her DD's paper had nbot given her the place - many, many exam marks are changed every single year in many contexts.)

Isn't maladministration smply the legal term for 'bog standard cock up'? It simply means that the person or body in charge of something made a mistake, but written in jargon 'maladministration', rather than 'mistake'?

The panel ruled that there was no maladministration so the 3 day rule was irrelevant. So why are people going on about how this decision is dangerous because it sets a precedent that 7 days is not unreasonable?

The only precedent that it sets is the panel's definition of what constitutes maladministration. Which we don't know, either because the panel wasn't specific in its ruling (unlikely given it is supposed to respond to specific points and give a legal reason why each appeal point is being knocked down) or because Perma hasnt deemed it necessary to post that section of the letter on here.

I am obviously only guessing but I suspect that the panel based its decision on the fact that on Allocation Day Perma had been told that she had been allocated her 3rd choice and that what followed wasn't maladmin from a legal sense.

"The law says the Ombudsman can investigate alleged or apparent ?maladministration? or service failure. This can include:

delay
incorrect action or failure to take any action
failure to follow procedures or the law
failure to provide information
inadequate record-keeping
failure to investigate
failure to reply
misleading or inaccurate statements
inadequate liaison
inadequate consultation
broken promises

The Ombudsman does not usually criticise a decision which has been properly taken simply because someone disagrees with it. We will however look at the way the decision was made." LGO

That is like saying that a cock up is the same as negligence. Just because someone cocks up doesnt mean that you can sue them for negligence.

So no, from a legal viewpoint, a cock up is not the same as maladministration.

Habba, the point as I understand it is that to decide maladministration had NOT occurred, they would have HAD to assume that a 7 day delay did not constitute maladministration.

So the new precedent of 7 days is set simply by the panel proceeding to the second stage.

Tiggy, I think actually it was withdrawn verbally on the 2nd:

"Anyway, a completely bizarre development:

1pm phone call from Admissions director. I ask him straight:

Has the offer actually been withdrawn? (no straight answer - they're waiting to hear from the 'other' LEA

So, i ask: "Let me get this straight: are you telling me there has been an error but the place is not withdrawn? Or has there been an error and the place IS being withdrawn? Because unless you and I know that we have no idea of the way forward. And if it hasn't been withdrawn she still has her place"

Answer: "Now that is a very good question. Let me send a separate email to [] local authority and ask them.?

YOU REALLY COULD NOT MAKE THIS UP.

Ten minutes later: another phone call. He's found a letter dated yesterday from the other LA telling them that they are withdrawing the offer and parents must be informed - so he's now telling me.

So, of course, i say: "Ok, you're verbally telling me they are withdrawing the offer. I need that in writing....."

What a complete shambles."

LGO case 99C01876 involved withdrawal and the LGO ruled that their withdrawal was incomplete and as such did not sufficiently remove parental expectation of a place. This conversation at 1pm does the same, but the conversation at 1.20 ish would remove that, so I say that's the date the clock ticks. That would mean either 6 days if you count all days (which I presume you do) or 4 working days.

Habba, but you are saying that maladministration = negligence. The list provided by lougle, and the point that it can simply mean 'service failure', points to a wholly different meaning, which clearly encompasses your definition of 'cock up'.

teacherwith2kids I would agree if the panel's decision was to "2.Conclude that the arrangements were not carried out correctly and impartially, but that it didn't deprive the child of a place."

However, they didn't do that. They said they were satisfied that the arrangements were applied 'correctly and impartially'.

We know they weren't applied correctly because Perma's DD got offered a place when she didn't reach the mark that the last person go in with and in fact, there were at least 188 children above her.

This is why, in my view, it doesn't set precedent, it's just an incorrect judgement.

That is like saying that a cock up is the same as negligence. Just because someone cocks up doesnt mean that you can sue them for negligence.

So no, from a legal viewpoint, a cock up is not the same as maladministration.

In relation to this case I would say the following points of maladministration apply:

"delay - Yes, the withdrawl of the place was delayed beyond reason.

incorrect action or failure to take any action - Yes, a place was offered in error and withdrawn too late.

failure to follow procedures or the law

failure to provide information - Yes, Perma asked for reasons for the place offer and got no information. She was told to just accept that a place was hers.

inadequate record-keeping - Yes, there was no information available as to why the place had arisen.

failure to investigate - Yes, Perma raised the alarm 4 times and nobody investigated to find out why. If they had done, they may well have been in time.

failure to reply

misleading or inaccurate statements - Yes. The LA official said that a place was available. They also didn't officially withdraw the place when they spoke to Perma and said that they couldn't say if it was an official withdrawal.

inadequate liaison - Yes, the Admissions code is legally binding on Local Authorities whether they are the admitting authority or not. They did not liaise to give a coherent statement to Perma, nor did they liaise to make sure they had all the facts they needed. This gave Perma legitimate expectation of a place.

inadequate consultation

broken promises - Yes, Perma was assured that the place could not be taken from her by the LA official and even put it in writing.