The Education (Objections to Admission Arrangements) Regulations 1999

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Section 90 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 enables objections to be referred to the adjudicator or (in Wales) the Secretary of State about admission arrangements for maintained schools which have been determined under section 89 of the Act. Objections may be made by the admission authorities for other maintained schools and, in certain circumstances, by parents.

These Regulations contain provisions relating to the conditions under which objections may be referred and decided, and the consequences of decisions. They come into force on 1st April 1999.

Regulation 2 provides that an objection may not be referred under section 90(1) (objections by admission authorities) if the substance of the objection is to seek an alteration to the admission arrangements which can only be made by way of a grammar school ballot or by publishing statutory proposals. Regulation 3 specifies the time limits within which any objection must be referred. These are six weeks after the notification that the arrangements have been determined or, where the objection is by a parent, six weeks after the date on which relevant details of the arrangements were published in the local newspaper. In either case an objection received later will have been validly referred if it was not reasonably practicable for it to have been received earlier.

Regulation 4 defines the parents who are able to refer an objection. Such a parent must be an individual with a child of compulsory school age in primary education and must reside in the consultation area for the school. Regulation 5 deals with the type of objection a parent may refer. This is an objection to arrangements for selection of pupils by ability or aptitude which date from the school year 1997/98 or earlier and depend for their lawfulness on section 100 of the 1998 Act (because they do not fall within any of the other categories of permitted selection). Regulation 6 adds a condition that a parental objection may only be determined by the adjudicator if ten or more parents make the same or substantially the same objection to the same admission arrangements.

Regulation 7 requires the adjudicator to refer to the Secretary of State objections about criteria relating to religion, religious denomination or religious practice. It does not apply to Wales, where all objections are made to the Secretary of State. Regulation 8 prescribes the way decisions on objections are to be published. Regulation 9 provides that, when an objection to a school’s admission arrangements has been decided, no further objection may be made on the same issue against the school’s arrangements for that school year or the following year except where, in the following year the admission authority seeks to reintroduce arrangements that had previously been successfully objected to. Regulation 10 enables an admission authority, in a case where an objection has been upheld against the admission arrangements of another authority, to revise their admission arrangements to the extent that they reasonably believe is necessary to be consistent with the decision. Conditions are specified, including a time limit of two months.