Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 29 February 2016 to Question 27310, if she will extend the remit of regional school commissioners to include an active role in monitoring the compliance of schools' admission policies with the School Admissions Code.

It is the role of the Schools Adjudicator to determine whether school admission arrangements comply with the Schools Admissions Code.

The Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) are responsible for approving new academies and intervening in underperforming academies and maintained schools in their area. The RSCs also have a limited role in agreeing admissions changes in open academies.

The specific range of circumstances where an RSC would take decisions on admissions arrangements in open academies is as follows:

• Where the Trust of an academy, free school, University Technical College (UTC) or studio school has requested a variation of its admissions arrangements outside the normal timeframe for consulting on and determining admissions.

• Where, following a code-complaint consultation by the Trust, the academy requests a change to any admissions arrangements that are written into the funding agreement.

• Where an academy, free school, UTC or studio school has requested a post-opening ‘derogation’ from the requirement to comply with the code, but only where there is an existing policy precedent.