Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that charities or other civil society organisations who wish to object to the admission arrangements of a school can do so on behalf of parents local to that school.

The Department’s proposed changes in relation to objections are designed to ensure that the Schools Adjudicator is able to focus on the concerns parents may have about the fairness of the admission arrangements of their local school and is not held up by the need also to consider objections referred by interest groups from outside the area. Local authorities will continue to have the right to object so that they are able to act on behalf of the local community.

We will be conducting a full public consultation in due course and will give careful consideration to all the views expressed in that consultation.