New Clause 4
Education and Inspections Bill
11:45 am
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
The Education Act 2002 gave local authorities responsibility for co-ordinating the annual school admissions process in England, but the process works on the basis of a balance of responsibilities between schools and local authorities, with own-admission authority schools setting and applying their own admission arrangements, and local authorities managing the flow of information on applications and potential offers and making the best offer available to parents at the end of the process.
As individual admission authorities are accountable for decisions to grant or refuse admission to their schools, we do not agree that we should transfer statutory responsibility to local authorities—despite my instinctive cultural sympathy for anything called new clause 4. Where schools admit pupils by reference to aptitude, ability or commitment to faith, it could be asking too much of local authorities to expect them to assess applicants properly against a broad spectrum of criteria. In particular, assessments of religious commitments are best made by the governing bodies of the schools concerned, using objective evidence provided by their religious leaders.