Citation, commencement and application

1. —(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Education (Variation of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2002 and shall come into force on 20th January 2003.

(2) These Regulations apply only in relation to England.

Interpretation

2. —(1) In these Regulations—

“the Act” means the School Standards and Framework Act 1998;

“admission number” means the number of pupils in any relevant age group intended to be admitted in any school year as determined or, where the context requires, proposed to be determined by an admission authority in accordance with section 89A(1)( 2 );

“the relevant committee”, in relation to a maintained school, means the school organisation committee for the area of the local education authority who maintain the school;

“statutory proposals” means proposals published under section 28( 3 ).

(2) Any reference in these Regulations to a numbered section or Schedule is a reference to that section of, or Schedule to, the Act.

Variation of admission arrangements

3. —(1) This regulation prescribes for the purposes of section 89(8)(e) the circumstances in which an admission authority, having determined the admission arrangements which are to apply for a particular school year, may (in addition to the circumstances set out in section 89(5)) vary those arrangements.

(2) Subject to regulation 4, an admission authority may vary an admission number where such variation is necessary to implement the approval of statutory proposals where—

(a) the proposals have been approved under paragraph 3 of Schedule 6, or

(b) the local education authority have determined under paragraph 4 of that Schedule to implement the proposals.

Referral of variations to the adjudicator

4. —(1) Except where paragraph (2) applies, the requirements of section 89(5) and (6) (proposed variation of admission arrangements in view of a major change of circumstances) are to apply to a proposed variation made under regulation 3.

(2) The requirements of section 89(5) and (6) shall not apply to an admission authority in relation to the proposed variation of an admission number in any case where the statutory proposals giving rise to that variation have been approved—

(a) by the relevant committee under paragraph 3(2)(b) of Schedule 6 without modification of any proposed admission number, or

(b) (where paragraph 3(5) or (6) of Schedule 6 applies) by the adjudicator in accordance with paragraph 3(7) of that Schedule,

(whether or not the proposals have subsequently been modified by the adjudicator under paragraph 5(7) of that Schedule) provided in each case that, following such approval, the statutory proposals are not modified in relation to any admission number by the relevant committee pursuant to a request made under paragraph 5(2)(a) of Schedule 6.