Parents objecting to Brighton and Hove City Council’s plans to offer “open admissions” to secondary schools have become more frustrated with senior councillors’ responses to their concerns.
The council is holding a special meeting to vote on the plans on Thursday (27 February). They include various changes to secondary school admissions such as open admissions – allocating 5 per cent of places at schools in two-school catchment areas to pupils living in single-school catchments.
During an eight-week public consultation in December and January, almost 4,000 people responded to the consultation question “how much do you agree or disagree with the proposed introduction of a new open admission priority”.
A report published before the meeting said that 51.5 per cent of respondents strongly disagreed and 9.6 per cent disagreed compared with 25.4 per cent strongly agreeing and 7.9 per cent agreeing.
When parents challenged the Labour leader of the council Bella Sankey and deputy leader Jacob Taylor on open admissions, to their surprise the political leaders focused on responses to a different question.
Councillor Sankey said in an email reply to one parent: “The proposal on open admissions is an acknowledgement that some areas of the city only have one catchment area school while the two central catchment areas both have two schools.
“Many residents feel that this is fundamentally unfair. We have listened to the feedback and concerns raised during the consultation.
“We are proposing a much smaller percentage – 5 per cent down from 20 per cent.
“It is worth noting that despite the 20 per cent proposal being opposed in the survey results, the principle of open admissions was actually supported: 41 per cent indicated support for a percentage of open admissions at 5 per cent or higher, versus 40.2 per cent of respondents saying they didn’t support open admissions at all.”
Another parent Chris Reynolds wrote to councillors saying that the second question highlighted by Councillor Sankey on percentages was presented without an explainer and “do not agree” was “sandwiched between” prefer not to say and other.
He believes the option to not agree was not visible immediately to most users particularly those using a mobile phone.
Mr Reynolds said: “It seems very clear that question one was specifically designed to understand the introduction of open admissions in principle and doesn’t at all refer to the 20 per cent figure.
“On the second question, to the council, it seems 700 people immediately changed their minds and agreed in principle to open admissions.
“To me, it seems very clear that the council are misrepresenting the data to create a narrative that supports their desired outcome.”
Other parents have raised similar concerns about the focus on the question relating to the percentage of open admissions.
A parent who did not want to be identified because the debate had become so polarised said in response to Councillor Sankey: “Looking through the survey results, it is hard to see much support for any of this poorly thought through set of proposals.
“Amazingly, you are also proposing a catchment area change without providing evidence of what the two affected areas think about that proposal.”
Another parent said that the council was “cherry-picking” data.
In response to parents’ concerns about the way that the data was presented, Councillor Taylor said: “We are clear that when asked about the proposal for open admissions, 61 per cent of responses were against or strongly against.
“However, it is also true that when asked about a range of differing percentages for open admissions in a subsequent question, 41 per cent of responses selected a range of percentages between 5 and 30 per cent.
“Only 40.2 per cent reaffirmed that they ‘did not agree with the introduction of an open admission priority’.
“The survey is not a referendum and can never be. We are highlighting these results because we think it’s a relevant part of the survey responses and suggests there were more nuanced views around open admissions at a lower percentage.”
The special council meeting is due to start at 3pm at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (27 February). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
