Local government – Denominational schools – School admissions

R (on the application of S) (claimant) v Independent Appeal Panel of St Thomas Catholic Primary School (defendant) and Governors of St Thomas Catholic Primary School (interested party): QBD (Admin) (Judge Davis QC): 16 September 2009

The claimant (S) applied for judicial review of a decision of the defendant independent appeal panel dismissing her appeal against the non-admission of her son to a denominational primary school.

S had applied for her son to be admitted to a Catholic primary school. The admission form completed by S stated that she was a member of the Russian Orthodox church, that her husband was a member of the Church of England and that the church attended by her family was a Church of England church. The form as completed by S did not provide any information as to her son’s religion. The school was oversubscribed and S’s son was not admitted. Thereafter the school allocated some unfilled places using its oversubscription criteria. The criteria established a rank of priority that children fell into according to their involvement with the Catholic faith. Having regard to those criteria the interested party board of governors of the school placed S into the lowest category of priority for admission, with the result that he was not admitted. The panel dismissed S’s appeal to it and held that the school had correctly and impartially applied its oversubscription criteria and that it was entitled to reach the decision that it had. S contended that the panel: (1) misdirected itself as to what category of priority her son fell into and that, in particular, her son fell into a higher category than that into which he had been placed; (2) failed to give adequate reasons for its decision.

Held: (1) The school and the panel were entitled to find that on the information provided by S her son fell into the lowest category of priority for admission to the school. It was clear that S’s son was not the child of a parent of an eastern church in communion with the Catholic church as there was no evidence that the Russian Orthodox church was in communion with the Catholic church. Accordingly, S’s son could not obtain a higher placement available under the oversubscription criteria to children whose parents were of an eastern church in communion with the Catholic church. Further, as no information had been provided as to S’s son’s religion it could not be said that he was entitled to be placed into any higher category of priority than that into which he had been placed.

(2) The reasons provided by the panel for its decision were adequate both at common law and having regard to the School Admissions Code, R v Westminster City Council Ex p Ermakov [1996] 2 All ER 302 CA (Civ Div) and R v Birmingham City Council Ex p B [1999] Ed CR 573 QBD considered. It was clear that the issue before the panel was whether S had been placed into the wrong category for admission to the school. The panel’s decision as conveyed to S clearly stated that it had concluded that the school had correctly and impartially applied its oversubscription criteria and that, on the facts, the school was entitled to find that S’s son fell into the lowest category of priority for admission to the school. While the panel’s decision could have been more explicit, the parties had understood what the issue before the panel was, so that the benefit of any more explicitness in its reasoning was questionable. Further, even if the panel had failed to give adequate reasons in its decision, that deficiency had been remedied by a later letter, sent by the local authority in which S lived, which more fully explained the panel’s reasoning. In any event, even if there had been a failure to provide S with adequate reasons in the circumstances of the case it was inappropriate for the court in the exercise of its discretion to grant S judicial review in her favour.

Application refused.

Ian Wise (instructed by Maxwell Gillott) for the claimant; Clive Rawlings (instructed by in-house solicitor) for the defendant; Denis Edwards (instructed by in-house solicitor) for the interested party.