Legal Battle Looms over local families school choice

12.25.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 9th Apr 2003

A long standing argument about whether borough children should have preference over out-of-borough children in allocating scarce school places will soon flare up again as a result of a challenge by other London boroughs, notably Camden, to the present law - the Greenwich Judgement - which forbids councils from giving preference to residents children.

This action, if successful, could have significant implications for the borough's secondary schools that have 40% of pupils from out of borough, some of whom, because of proximity or sibling connection, enjoy preference over residents. In some cases - like Waldegrave - residents in areas like Hampton can never gain admission though children from Hounslow regularly do.

Vincent Cable, MP, who several years ago obtained a parliamentary debate to challenge the Greenwich Judgement, welcomed the news that other councils were prepared to challenge it.

"There is a real sense of injustice generated by the current admission arrangements. Residents not unreasonably expect that, when they pay council tax to fund local schools, they will enjoy preference in admissions. Currently they do not. If education is to remain a local service, there should be some local democracy in the admission process; if on the other hand the government wants instead to treat education as a "

"national service it will have to fund schools on the basis of their pupil intake not, as now, on which borough the school is in".