H, R (on the application of) v Sheffield City Council

An admissions appeal committee must decide the merits of the individual appeal. Under the Education Act 1996, it is not generally a tribunal with jurisdiction to determine the legality of the local education authority’s admissions policy. The committee may, however, take account of known illegality where that is relevant to the individual appeal, and it must not apply arrangements which would itself make its decision unlawful. The court will rarely interfere with a first-instance decision to grant declaratory relief but refuse further relief. Intervention requires an error of principle or a conclusion which was clearly wrong.

The appellants challenged the allocation of places in Sheffield secondary schools. The local education authority accepted that its arrangements unlawfully failed to invite parents to give reasons for choosing the catchment school, contrary to section 411(1)(b) of the Education Act 1996. The appellants had nevertheless been refused places at High Storrs by statutory appeal committees.

Owen J declared the admissions procedure unlawful but refused to quash the committee decisions or order fresh hearings. The appeal concerned whether the committees had to take account of the antecedent illegality and whether further relief should have been granted.

1. The appeal was dismissed. The court divided on the jurisdictional question, but all three judges agreed that no further relief should be granted.

2. Lord Justice Laws considered that sections 423 and 414 and paragraph 11 of Schedule 33 to the Education Act 1996 confined the committee to determining the factual merits of individual appeals. The duty to take account of specified matters required consideration of factual material and did not confer a judicial-review jurisdiction over the legality of the authority’s policy. The arrangements for inviting preferences under section 411(1) were also anterior to, and outside, paragraph 11.

3. Lord Justice Pill and Lord Justice Peter Gibson rejected that broad jurisdictional restriction. The majority view was that an independent appeal committee was not obliged to treat known unlawful arrangements as lawful or to apply them slavishly. It could consider relevant legal issues, although it had no power to quash the authority’s policy and remained concerned with the individual appeal. Pill LJ approved the approach in R v Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, ex parte Clark [1998] ELR 152; Gibson LJ agreed with that conclusion.

4. Despite that difference, the unlawful invitation procedure could not realistically have affected the outcome. High Storrs was substantially over capacity, the prejudice argument was overwhelming, and the appellants’ cases under the admission criteria were weak. The possible effect of requiring catchment applicants to give reasons was too speculative to justify fresh hearings.

5. The court also upheld Owen J’s exercise of discretion. An appellate court should not interfere unless the first-instance judge erred in principle or reached a clearly wrong conclusion. The appeal was therefore dismissed and the refusal of relief beyond the declaration affirmed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Appeal from the decision of Owen J, made on 19 March 1999, dismissed. The declaration that the admissions procedure was unlawful remained, but no certiorari or fresh appeal hearings were ordered.