Drayton Manor High School, R (on the application of) v The Schools Adjudicator & Anor

A schools adjudicator exercises an original jurisdiction when determining an objection to admission arrangements and must decide the objection on its merits. Judicial review is appropriately cautious, but the adjudicator must give intelligible and adequate reasons addressing the principal controversial issues. A failure to address a central submission bearing on whether admission criteria unfairly advantage or disadvantage children is a material error. The decision may therefore be quashed. Although admission criteria may pursue a socially balanced intake, criteria using distance must comply with the relevant mandatory requirements and guidelines in the admission code, including consideration of unfair disadvantage.

The governing body of Drayton Manor High School challenged the Schools Adjudicator’s determination of 16 October 2008. The adjudicator had upheld Ealing London Borough Council’s objection to the school’s oversubscription criterion and directed that, for September 2009, criterion 3 should refer simply to proximity of the school to the child’s home.

The school argued that the adjudicator had acted irrationally, failed to give adequate reasons, and misapplied the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and the School Admissions Code. In particular, it contended that the replacement criterion would disadvantage children in the east of the borough who had limited access to suitable alternative schools and might face substantially longer journeys.

1. The claim for judicial review succeeded and the adjudicator’s determination was quashed. The matter was remitted to the adjudicator with a direction that the objection not be upheld. The defendant agreed to pay the claimant’s costs, to be assessed if not agreed.

2. Under sections 90(1) and 90(3) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, the adjudicator has an original jurisdiction. The adjudicator must determine the objection independently on its merits. The court endorsed the approach in R v Schools Adjudicator, ex parte Metropolitan Borough of Wirral [2000] ELR 620.

3. The court should approach a challenge to an expert adjudicator with an appropriate degree of caution. It should not substitute its own assessment merely because it might have reached a different factual conclusion. The decision remains liable to be quashed where the adjudicator has clearly misdirected himself in law or failed to address a material issue. The approach in AH (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2008] 1 AC 678, referring to Cooke v Secretary of State for Social Security [2002] 3 All ER 279, was accepted.

4. Reasons must be intelligible and adequate. They must enable the reader to understand why the decision was reached and how the principal important controversial issues of law and fact were resolved. Reasons need not address every material consideration, but they must not leave substantial doubt that the decision-maker misunderstood an important matter or failed to decide rationally on relevant grounds. The court applied South Buckinghamshire District Council v Porter (No 2) [2004] UKHL 33.

5. The adjudicator had not addressed the school’s central submission that the proposed criterion would disadvantage children in the east who could not, or did not wish to, attend the available single-sex or religious schools and might have no realistic local alternative. That omission went to the heart of whether the existing criterion actively promoted equity or unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged one child compared with another. It also undermined the adjudicator’s conclusion on transport and journey length. The decision was consequently inadequately reasoned and unlawful, consistently with Governing Body of the London Oratory School and others v Schools Adjudicator [2004] EWHC 3014 (Admin).

6. The adjudicator’s reference to the catchment-area guidance in paragraph 2.35 of the Code was not itself decisive. The conclusion could stand or fall on paragraph 1.67 and paragraph 2.34, but failed because the central competing disadvantages had not been considered.

The judgment records interim relief granted by Sullivan J on 17 October 2008 and subsequent case-management orders by Mr Robin Purchas QC on 21 October 2008. The Administrative Court then conducted a rolled-up judicial review hearing and quashed the adjudicator’s determination.