Archived decisions

Contact: Alex Munro, Education Officer (Admissions & Special Projects) 01962 846462

1 Summary

1.1. The Education Act 2002 and the linked Admission Forum (England) Regulations 2002 require all local education authorities to establish an Admission Forum. Hitherto, this has not been a statutory requirement but Hampshire's Forum was set up in 1999, in accordance with advice in the Code of Practice on admissions.

1.2. The Hampshire Forum has considered the new regulations and recommends that, from March 2003, membership should be as set out in the table in section 2.2.

1.3. The proposals in this report have no additional resource implications.

2 Background

2.1. The regulations set out the categories of Forum members and give a minimum and maximum number of appointments within each category. The table overleaf shows the membership of the existing Forum, the suggested range within the new framework and the Admission Forum's recommendations for the new Forum. "Core members" are appointed by the LEA. The regulations also allow LEAs to appoint "other members" as community representatives, as recommended by the "core members", and these are indicated in the table overleaf.

2.2. Table

(The regulations also allow the appointment of representatives of Academies and City Technology Colleges. There are no such institutions in Hampshire and therefore no reference has been made to them in this paper.)

2.3. The following paragraphs explain the Admission Forum's recommendations:

2.3.1. Three County Councillors currently sit as members of the Forum. This has worked well. The regulations allow LEA members to be either councillors or officers. The Forum r ecommended that this category should be reserved for Councillors and that the current arrangements should continue.

2.3.2. There are currently six headteacher members of the Forum, reflecting the number and status of schools throughout the county. The Forum was disappointed that the same number of headteachers could not be appointed to the new Forum but recommended that five headteachers be appointed as indicated in the above table.

2.3.3. The new regulations allow the current diocesan representation to continue and the Forum recommended no change.

2.3.4. The most significant change between the current membership and the new requirement is for a reduction in the parent and governor level of representation. Not only is the maximum "core" membership reduced to three but regulations require the three parent governor representatives to be people "appointed to an Education Overview and Scrutiny Committee of a local education authority in accordance with The Parent Governor Representatives (England) Regulations 2001." The three current EPRC representatives have been informed of the new requirement and have been invited to attend the January meeting of the Forum as observers.

2.3.5. Recommendations for "community" members in the regulations reflect Hampshire's current practice. The Forum recommends that the three "local community" places in the new structure be reserved for representatives of the armed forces, ethnic minorities and special educational needs and that an additional "other member" place be allocated to a representative of Early Years.

2.3.6. There are currently three places on Hampshire's Forum for neighbouring LEAs (Dorset [with whom Hampshire has a formal arrangement in relation to Highcliffe School], Southampton and Portsmouth). The Forum felt that attendance by representatives of neighbouring LEAs was very valuable and recommended no change in current arrangements with all three LEAs being invited to continue their membership within the "other member" category.

2.3.7. In accordance with Code guidance, the Social Services Department will be invited to nominate a member for appointment within the "other member" category.

2.4. The above recommendations are based on the Forum's experience of three years' work and should allow the Forum to continue to make a significant contribution to admissions policy and practice in Hampshire.

2.5. Term of office

The regulations set a maximum period of office of four years for each member. Within this maximum, the Forum recommended that three years should be the maximum but members could be re-appointed/re-elected. Membership would be on a "rolling" basis, in other words, in the event of a member's resignation before the completion of three years' tenure, any new member would be appointed for a full three years. In this way, it was hoped that there would be no sudden loss of experienced members from the Forum.

2.6. Officers of the Forum

Regulations require a chair and vice-chair to be appointed. They may be members of the Forum or not. Current Forum members recommended that both the chair and vice-chair should be drawn from Forum members. The new regulations also require a secretary to be formally appointed. The current Forum recommended that this should be the Education Officer (Admissions and Special Projects). The appointments will be made at the first meeting of the new constituted Forum.

2.7. Responsibilities of the Forum

The Code of Practice on admissions (revised) sets out a range of responsibilities for Forums. They are required to review all admission arrangements, including information provided for parents, and to ensure that arrangements for "potentially vulnerable children" (such as "looked after" children, children with special needs, children moving into an area outside the normal admission round) are not disadvantaged by admission procedures. The Forum will review its existing terms of reference in the light of the new regulations and guidance in the revised Code.

2.8. The new regulations will take effect from 20^th January 2003 and the first meeting of the new Forum must be held before 20^th March. A meeting has already been arranged for 4^th March and this will, therefore, be the first meeting of the new Forum.

2.9. From March 2003, LEAs must "have regard" to any Forum advice (in practice, this is what has happened in Hampshire hitherto). A summary of key Forum advice will be made available on the LEA website and in the LEA "composite prospectus".

3 Recommendation

3.1. That the Executive Member for Education be advised as follows:

3.1.1. That the Hampshire Admission Forum be established in accordance with the new statutory requirements; and

3.1.2. That it be a recommendation to the Council that delegated authority be given to the Executive Member for Education to make individual appointments to the Hampshire Admission Forum having regard to nominations and recommendations as required by legislation and in accordance with the existing Forum's recommendations concerning term of office.

Section D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Documents

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extend in the preparation of this report.

NB The list excludes:

1 Published works

2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined the Act.

Code of Practice on School Admissions - DfES (revised version effective from 20^th January 2003)