§ Mr. Trippierasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about parents' rights in the new school admission process introduced by the Education Act 1980.
§ Sir Keith JosephUnder section 6 of the Education Act 1980, every local education authority has to make arrangements whereby parents of children in their area may express preferences as to the schools their children are to attend. So that the choice is informed, section 8 of the Act requires certain relevant information to be published. These preferences may relate to any school, maintained or otherwise, within or outside the authority's area. Authorities—and, as the case may be, governors of county or voluntary schools—are under a duty to comply with these preferences unless at least one of the criteria specified in section 6(3) applies—namely, that compliance would
Where such a preference is not met, parents have an unconditional right of appeal to a local appeal committee under section 7 of the Act. In the light of the cases advanced by the parents, on the one hand, and the authority or governors, on the other, the appeal committee is completely free to decide each appeal in the way it thinks best. That decision is then binding on the authority or governors.
- (a) prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources;
- (b) be incompatible with particular arrangements for admission to an aided or special agreement school; or
- (c) be incompatible with any arrangements for selection by reference to ability or aptitude.
The Education Act 1980 gives the holder of my office no role in this appeals process. It remains open, though, for parents to complain—not appeal—to me and, if this is appropriate, for me to intervene under section 68 or 99 of the Education Act 1944 on school admission as on other questions. The scope for my intervention, however, is very limited and qualitatively different from the freedom of decision given to local appeal committees. Unlike those committees, I can formally intervene only in certain limited circumstances; that is, where the evidence satisfies me that the authority or governors have either exercised their powers, or performed their duties, "unreasonably"—which, in the strict legal sense of that word, implies a degree of perversity--or that they have failed to discharge a duty imposed on them under the Acts. These are very rigorous tests and, while each complaint would be properly considered, I would be likely to take the matter up only if there seemed a real possibility that I might be empowered to act. Since I expect local education authorities and school governors to exercise their functions properly, I believe that it is likely that I would take formal action under the sections only in a handful of cases