Can't prove you get child benefit? You can't appy for school.

[Arabica]

Is this common practice, or just the LEA I've moved to?
I have 2 children--DS, 9, who should be in year 5, and DD, 4, who should be in nursery and due to start reception in Jan 2011. She has SN and a statement.
As soon as we found a house to buy (but before exchanging contracts) I started researching local primary schools. One is right opposite my house and would be OK for DS. Was told that all applications have to be made through LEA who have outsourced the process to a private company. Applications cannot be made until you have a council tax account--ie, until completion.
We completed later than I'd planned, in late August and on the very same day, I phoned the local authority to get the council tax account sorted.
I then discovered that before your application for a school place can even be accepted, you must also present evidence that you get child benefit or child tax credit. A letter addressed to you at your old address is insufficient--it must be sent to the new one!
We don't claim child tax cedits, so I then spent over £5 calling the child benefit helpline on my mobile, as no land line yet connected.
Calling child benefit is a joke--not only is it so busy that you often cannot get through at all, when you finally do get through (after being on hold for 8 minutes) you are told that these confirmation letters can take up to 10 working days to produce! When I asked if the application could be started without the letter, bearing in mind that I could prove (a) that I was DS' parent and still lived with his father
(b) that I was a UK resident
(c) that until July DS was at a school in another borough...
I was told, no.
So. DS has missed the whole of his first week at his new school, and the chance to bond with his new peers, because I can't rebut the presumption that I do not have the right to make parental decisions about him!
Am absolutely fuming--the school over the road don't have the power to run their own admissions, and am really scared that by the time the LEA deign to accept the application there won't be any places left.
So far as DD is concerned, the LEA still handle SN admissions and they have asked for no proof at all from me--they were happy to accept her statement from our previous borough as proof of her existence.
I have both kids at home and DS is so miserable, he just wants to stay in. DD is so much younger and has very different needs and interests--she just wants to be outside exploring the parks, so entertaining them both is proving very difficult and challenging.
Returning to the old schools is not an option and nor is seeking a school out of the borough, as it's too far away.
Have written politely to local councillor and the privatised admissions service to express all of the above. Do not want to do local paper--DS would hate it.
Does anyone know any law I can quote at them that says their admissions procedure has to be reasonable and not depend on how long the child benefit people take to write letters?

In your situation I would be contacting the local MP and making waves. What a scandalous process, and completely unnecessary. I don't know of anyone, but plenty of people on mumsnet claim not to have applied for child benefit. What would they do?

It is the same in my local LEA.
Could you speak to the head and see what the situation is over places. Also another route would by to contact the local education welfare office, they may be able to wangle a temporary place is start talking about how the law states a child must attend school. Sorry I don't know of anything you can quote, hopefully someone will come along who does.

No experience of this, but I should think the best place to look is the School Admissions Code. www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode/ This is stautory guidance, i.e. legally binding on Local Authorities. (Look for the key word "must" within the document, which means there is a legal requirement.)

I wonder whether the following might do?

"3.23 Applications made outside the normal admissions round must be considered without delay, and a formal decision either to offer or to refuse a place must be made and notified to the applicant, advising them of their statutory right of appeal when a place cannot be offered. Applicants must not be refused the opportunity to make an application, or told that they can only be placed on a waiting list rather than make a formal application."

It sounds to me like you're being refused the opportunity to make an application. Common sense would suggest to me that the way to make decisions "without delay" would be to allow you to put in an application without the desired documents, and then require you to produce the documents later. The LA knows it could withdraw the school place later on if they found you'd obtained it fraudulently, so I don't see why they are delaying your child's school start by insisting on documents upfront before you can even apply.

As I say, I don't know anything about this, I'm just guessing - but perhaps an organisation like ACE could confirm whether I'm right in thinking your LA isn't allowed to refuse to accept your application.

Actually if you were moving from overseas you wouldn't necessarily be in receipt of child benefit, but you would be entitled to a school place. So actually it sounds as if they are acting illegally. Maybe an admissions guru can help.

Yes mummytime is right, depending on the nationality of the parents, even if the children were born in the UK. Sounds like a ridiculous requirement. And what are they planning to do if CB starta being means tested & then not everyone is entitled to it??

Surely they just need id associating you and your child at that address. Would a bank statement showing the CB payments going in suffice or nhs registration card for local gp ?

I don't claim child benefit. Would that mean my child would not be allowed to go to school

Have you tried speaking directly to the school. My local school, when we moved areas, started my ds and worried about the paperwork later.

pagwatch- you don't need to claim child benefit all aprents of a child are entitled to it.. op.. i hop you sort it out somehow... its disgusting how they treat people.

pinayangel

actually you do have to claim it, as in you have to apply.
I have applied with my first two DCs but have not claimed, and do not receive CB for my DD

So my point remains. What would they do with a child whose parent does not claim it. Would they really be suggesting that my DD could not go to school because I don't claim CB for her.
I would love them to answer that

you obvioiusly everyone applies, coz when you don't apply for it, you wont get it of course.. but what im saying is all parents are entitled to cb...

Thanks for all the replies. if you are entitled to apply but haven't yet received child benefit you are allowed to submit a passport showing your visa. But this is not allowed for me as I do get child benefit but don't have the relevant paperwork.
It's a long time since I studied law but I am wondering if I can make a threat to apply for judicial review of the decision not to accept our application?

Yes. I know.

The point I am trying to make is that they are applying a criteria which is nonsense.
They are therefore potentially discriminating against a child ( like mine) for no other reason than I have chosen not to claim CB. Which as far as I am aware is perfectly reasonable, if unusual.

Their policy is unreasonable on many levels . I am just trying to illustrate that your inability to prove you are getting CB is redundant if their expectation that RECEIVING CB is universal is clearly wrong.

Do you see what I mean

Arabica, do you get CB paid directly into your bank account? Surely you can show someone the relevant part of your bank statements?

(not that the whole thing isn't totally unreasonable. I hate the way the State assumes us all to be inadequate liars until we can prove otherwise)

Could you show a bank statement showing the Child Benefit being paid into your account. It would have your reference number and it says Child Benefit on our bank statements.
Surely that would be proof enough.

so how does this affect his days off? if he is only allowed 10 days off school and local authority have wasted 5 of these days, i would be livid!

What exactly does your LEA's school admissions booklet say about proof of address and proof of responsibility for the child? Even if the admissions process is contracted out, this information should still be on the LEA's website.

The School Admissions Code (available on the old DCSF website) says that

1.78 Admission authorities must not use supplementary application or information forms that ask:

a) for any personal details about parents and families, such as maiden names, criminal convictions, marital, occupational or financial status (including marriage certificates) .....

You could argue ? although I think it?s rather a grey area - that the child benefit letter is information about financial status which admissions authorities are not permitted to ask for. But, in the admission authority?s favour, they are entitled to ask for proof of the child?s address. The Code also says that

Permitted information

1.80 Local authorities and admission authorities may ask for proof of address in order to establish whether oversubscription criteria are met. Such proof may include Council Tax or utility bills, but must not contain information prohibited by paragraph 1.78 above.

There is very little official documentation that ties the chid, rather than the parent, to a particular address and that (I imagine) is why they ask for a letter from the child benefit agency. Because the criterion under which most children are admitted to any school is home-school distance, reliable proof of where the child actually lives is crucial ? admissions appeals often turn on the measurement of the distance to school and where there is fraud or attempted fraud in school admissions, it is often in pretending that the child ?lives? with Grandma or Auntie Mary.

My LEA states in its admissions booklet that proof of the child?s address must be presented when the child takes up their place, but it does not seem to have published any guidance on what is acceptable as proof of address and it is (I think) left to each school to decide. At least some local schools ask for child benefit documentation. One school requires four documents:

? Child?s short birth certificate
? child benefit documentation
? council tax bill
? one other [from a list]

I can understand your frustration but, as I said, I think it?s very much a moot point whether this is (as you imply) needless bureaucracy or (as the LEA would probably argue) a fair and proportionate measure, to check that children do live at the address claimed for them and to prevent admissions fraud. I would be interested to know what ACE say.

Sorry. Am a very slow typist and have missed all the more recent posts.

What I imagine is going on here isn't that the LEA is saying only children in receipt of CB can attend school. That clearly would be bonkers on many levels. But what (I guess) they are saying is that you can't apply for a school place without evidence of where the child is currently living. It's very hard to argue that this is unreasonable - as I said, home-school distance is usually the key to admission to any school (except for LAC, special needs and siblings) and there is a lot of attempted fraud which LEAs have to stamp out, so that everyone gets a fair chance.

The real issue (in my view) is whether it is reasonable for the LEA to say that the proof of address has to be in the form of a child benefit letter.

To be frank, I think the judicial review idea is daft. Judicial review takes ages and costs a fortune - your child will probably be safely installed in the school before you have a date for court. There are better and quicker options. Speak to ACE and get their view on whether insisting on a child benefit letter when you have other evidence of your address is reasonable or not. Also ask their opinion on whether this is something you could take to the Local Government Ombudsman as an example of maladministration.

Hello panelmember and everyone else--thyanks so much for replying.
Things have moved on!
Armed with all the useful information I had been given and having spoken to ACE, I rang the LEA and politely but firmly insisted on having a conversation with a manager.
I explained that I felt the decision not to accept or process DS' school application without a child benefit letter was unreasonable and unfair, especially where both parents can prove that they live together at the same address.
Further, that their inflexibility meant that I was breaking the law by not educating my child.
She started by telling me that the application should have been accepted by her office staff. I was furious as I had been told three separate times by three different staff members that the application could not be handed in without a child benefit letter. She said that in the circumstances she would process the application...so I dashed down there and handed it in. Apparently there is a place at the school we want but it can take 5 days for the school to admit him. So I will be getting on the phone to them first thing Monday.
ACE felt that the child benefit letter requirement was reasonable to support an application, but that it wasn't reasonable to prevent an application being processed until such a letter was supplied, especially where there were no grounds to suspect that the child lived separately from the parents.

Oh, forgot to add, the LEA's policy re casual admissions (those like mine) is set out on their website--but when you click on the link to get there, it doesn't work.

I have my fingers crossed for you that everything goes smoothly now!

thanks--so do I