Catalogue description Records of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator

The Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) was established under section 25 of the School Standards Framework Act 1998. Schools Adjudicators make decisions relating to school organisation issues and admission arrangements in cases that cannot be resolved locally.

The OSA’s functions are:

• To determine objections to admission arrangements and appeals from schools against a direction from the local authority to admit a particular pupil;
• To resolve disputes where there is local disagreement on statutory proposals for school reorganisation or on the transfer and disposal of non-playing filed land and assets;
• To decide on competitions for new schools where the local authority has entered the competition with its own proposals;
• To decide on request to vary determined admission arrangements.

The office is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).