LEAs: Allocations to Oversubscribed Schools (Hansard, 9 July 1991)

§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch)
My Lords, local authorities can use any reasonable methods they like to allocate to oversubscribed schools, provided they do not discriminate on the basis of sex, race or residence within their administrative areas.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. Does she not find the decision of the courts rather puzzling, as under the 1944 Act the local education authority is obliged to provide enough places for its own pupils? The courts have now decided that under the 1980 Act local authorities cannot discriminate in favour of their own pupils as opposed to pupils in other local authority areas. Is that not in itself puzzling? Equally—this puzzles me even more—if the local authority cannot discriminate 1316 between its own pupils and those in another authority, how is it legitimate for it to discriminate within its own authority between different groups of pupils in choosing who may go to an oversubscribed school? Is there not a problem of logic here?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, there are two responses to the noble Lord's rather involved question. First, local authorities are able to determine their own criteria and consider intakes both of children within their authority area and, if they are on the border, of children from other authorities, as long as such intakes are consistent with the published criteria. Secondly, the admissions policy which was determined in 1988 under the Act has done much to open up parental choice and competition. That works for the majority of children in the country as a whole. It is only where children are on the boundaries of local education authorities that this problem arises; and that is mainly in London.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, is the Minister aware that in one of the cases that came before the courts concerning oversubscribed schools the judgment stated: It must be painfully difficult to balance two sets of duties under two quite different Acts—the 1944 Act and the 1980 Act". In the light of that judgment, does not the noble Baroness agree that there is now a case for legislation to clarify the position?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an important point. It is not an easy decision for local authorities. It is because of the judgments that have taken place that we are now taking evidence. In the light of those judgments we shall examine the impact on the intakes in this coming September. Only after examination of that impact will we consider whether it is necessary to take further steps in regard to a change in the legislation.

Lord Morris
My Lords, would it not be more profitable for local authorities to spend a great deal more time researching why undersubscribed schools are so awful instead of worrying about oversubscribed schools in other places?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, my noble friend makes an interesting point. Where most of the children are crossing the border of a local education authority area to go to another authority's schools, some fundamental questions need to be addressed.

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell us how local education authorities can plan for education provision when they do not know for what area they are planning because they do not know from which area they will be drawing their pupils?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Baroness is wrong. Local education authorities can plan for children in their own areas. They can determine the distance factor. They can also determine whether it is important to accept siblings and whether it is important to accept people on medical grounds or social grounds. All those factors work for local 1317 children. Where an authority has children on the borders of an authority the distance factor must operate without discrimination for children on both sides of the line. Children in families do not discriminate about LEA boundaries. If they are only two miles from a school, whether they live on one side of the: line or the other, they believe that that might actually be their local school.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, was this not a decision at first instance; and, if so, is there not some prospect of an appeal to the Court of Appeal on the construction of the Acts?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, my understanding is that these cases have run their course and that the judgments are definitive. Those judgments make it difficult for some local authorities to make decisions for children at the boundaries of their education authority areas. In the light of the judgments we believe, that we must look at the evidence and at the way in which those decisions will impact on the coming intake in September.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, is the department monitoring the number of appeals to each local authority? Is that not an undue burden on local authorities?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I can assure the noble Baroness that that is precisely what we are doing; and not only that, we also know the number of children going to school outside their local education authority areas.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, I am still a little lost although it seems that the department is taking an interest in the matter. Perhaps I may put a question to the Minister which was put to me by a parent. She asked, having had her child refused by a school, why her child should be refused by a school for which she is paying local taxes when another child in another authority is being accepted for that school. It is nothing to do with parental choice. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, missed the point. This parent wants to exercise parental choice. The problem is that no one gets to exercise it when there is oversubscription. I do not know what I am supposed to tell a parent when I am approached on this matter. I should like to know what the DES believes one ought to say in those circumstances.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, again, there are two responses. Local taxation contributes only 15 per cent. of the cost of education. It is impossible to say which part of that money is applied to education. Secondly, the problem of oversubscribed schools involves not only the difficulty of boundaries. Very popular schools are very popular. It may well be that children from within the area, and not children from outside the area, will have difficulty getting into them. I take the point of my noble friend Lord Morris that where schools are undersubscribed, some fundamental questions are begging.