Dont Bother

Consult our experts on 11 Plus appeals or any other type of school appeal

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panickingmum
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:12 pm
Location: Bucks

Dont Bother

Post by panickingmum »

Hi All,

Just a word of advice on the subject of the Ombudsman. Having now been through the lengthy and stressful process and been entirely unsuccessful I would advise anyone else just not to bother! It is obvious to me that this whole process is just "Lip service" and appearing to do the right thing but always an impossible uphill struggle with no chance of success.

I proved that on 2 accounts the Council failed in the process and admitted it/apologised for it. I also showed a huge inconsistency between the LEA reps between panels i.e. one provided invaluable and appeal changing information and one did not mention this fact but still this did not hold sway and get us a new appeal where all the information could be correctly presented.

Panickingmum
Katie
Posts: 229
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2007 10:25 am

Post by Katie »

I'm sorry to find myself having to agree with you. I had hoped that the Ombudsman would act upon all the discrepencies, inaccuracies and errors. The Ombudsman's supposed intervention was a total sham. He agreed that all the errors / untruths had indeed taken place - but said that the list of didn't carry enough weight to authorise a new appeal. Mmm - a lot of wasted effort in bringing the case to their attention.
Etienne
Posts: 8978
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:26 pm

Post by Etienne »

I remember Katie's case, and certainly had misgivings about the outcome.

We do make the point in the Q&As that the majority of complaints do not succeed, and that much heartache is going to be involved. Panickingmum goes a bit too far, however, in saying "Don't bother" and "No chance of success". While I understand her disappointment and distress, out of a total of 11,687 LG complaints in 2008-09, 2,748 resulted in a 'local settlement'.

'Local settlement' means that, during the course of the investigation, the authority offers a settlement that the ombudsman finds acceptable (in the case of school admission appeals, this usually means a re-hearing).
Etienne
Grumpy!
Posts: 73
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 2:45 pm
Location: Wirral

Post by Grumpy! »

I can offer the other side of the coin - we did get the chance of a new appeal after going to the ombudsman, albeit we still didn't get the outcome we wanted. At least I felt vindicated that the outrage I felt after the first appeal decision was justified!!

It is stressful, prolonging the agony, but in our experience, the ombudsman's office was very helpful and did try to keep us in the loop. It also helped that the school we were appealing for wanted the matter resolved too. If I hadn't done it though, I would have always wondered, what if..... so I for one am glad I did.
traffmum
Posts: 61
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:19 pm
Location: trafford

Post by traffmum »

Hi,
Sorry to hear you felt the ombudsmen didn't help, although I have to agree with 'grumpy'. We took our case to an ombudsmen who was very helpful. They found that the admissions code hadn't been followed and we were therefore at an injustice. We were offered a fresh appeal with a new panel and were thrilled to find that we were successful on this occasion and our son got into the school we wanted. My advice would be to give it a try if the code hasn't been followed, you have nothing to lose and at least you know you have tried.
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