Issue - meetings
Questions from County Councillors
Meeting: 19/11/2019 - Cabinet (Item 109)
109 Questions from County Councillors 
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Any county councillor may, by giving notice to the Proper Officer by 9 am two working days before the meeting, ask a question on any matter in respect of the Cabinet’s delegated powers.
The number of questions which may be asked by any councillor at any one meeting is limited to two (or one question with notice and a supplementary question at the meeting) and the time for questions will be limited to 30 minutes in total. As with questions at Council, any questions which remain unanswered at the end of this item will receive a written response.
Questions submitted prior to the agenda being despatched are shown below and will be the subject of a response from the appropriate Cabinet Member or such other councillor or officer as is determined by the Cabinet Member, and shall not be the subject of further debate at this meeting. Questions received after the despatch of the agenda, but before the deadline, will be shown on the Schedule of Addenda circulated at the meeting, together with any written response which is available at that time.
Decision:
See attached annex.
Minutes:
Councillor Richard Webber had given notice of the following question to Councillor Lindsay-Gale:
Councillor Lindsay-Gale was not present but had supplierd the following response:
‘Oxfordshire is fully committed to supporting Service families and it is deeply concerning that some Service families have experienced difficulties in finding a school place for their children. However, problems associated with in-year admissions are not confined to Service families.
Currently all mainstream state funded schools are required to take part in the coordinated admissions system for the main entry points for primary and infant schools, junior schools and transfer from primary to secondary school. It would be sensible to require studio schools and university technical colleges to be take part in a coordination of admissions scheme for the main point of entry. Local authorities are responsible for coordinating admissions and in Oxfordshire the scheme has worked well with a high proportion of children receiving first preference schools.
Most schools in Oxfordshire are part of the in-year admissions scheme but it would be helpful if all schools were required to take part in a coordinated admissions scheme for in-year applicants. In-year schemes should have timescales that apply to all local authorities and all admission authorities.
Therefore, I would be happy to write to the Secretary of State to ask for changes to the School Admissions Code 2014 to ensure that all admissions to mainstream schools are included in coordinated admissions arrangements for which local authorities are responsible. Primary legislation may be necessary to enable changes of this kind and I would support such a step to achieve a more efficient and fairer system.
There are arrangements in place to identify schools for hard to place children, but they can involve long delays due to the need to ask the Secretary of State to direct admission. This is against the interests of these vulnerable children and it would be helpful if local authorities responsible for coordination of admissions also had the legal right to direct admission when no school is willing to offer a child a school place. Therefore, I am also willing to write to the Secretary of State to request changes to primary legislation that would invest local authorities with the power to direct admission of hard to place children.’