Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the practical implications of schools having their own admissions criteria under a fully-academised system; and how local authorities will manage that situation.

The schools white paper, ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’, sets out the Government’s aim that every school should become an academy. In this context, it also sets out our intention to seek views on a number of changes to the admissions system to support parents in understanding how to get a place at their local schools.

As part of this, we will seek views on requiring the Local Authority to take on greater responsibility for certain admissions functions – in particular, co-ordinating in-year admissions and handling the administration of the independent appeal panels for all schools (including academies) in their area. These changes will make the system clearer and simpler for parents to navigate.

Any parent who has concerns regarding an individual school’s admission arrangements will continue to be able to refer an objection to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator. We intend to streamline the functions of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator so that objections to admission arrangements are resolved more quickly.

The white paper is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-excellence-everywhere.