School Placement Planning
Source: data.gov.uk (2018-10-29)

CYC Internal Audit Reports 2017. These reports are presented to the Audit and Governance Committee for consideration, and are also included with the agenda papers for the [relevant meetings](http://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=437). 

Reports are also grouped together by calendar year and published at this York Open Data platform. Reports for other years are available at the [__CYC Internal Audit Reports__](https://data.yorkopendata.org/dataset?q=internal+audit&sort=score+desc%2C+metadata_modified+desc) datasets.

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School Placement Planning  
City of York Council 
Internal Audit Report 2016/17 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Business Unit: Children, Education and Communities  
Responsible Officer: Assistant Director, Education and Skills 
Service Manager: Head of School Services 
Date Issued: 31 May 2017 
Status: Final 
Reference: 11330/001 
 
Overall Audit Opinion 
High Assurance 
Actions 
0 
0 
P3 
P2 
P1 
0 

 
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Summary and Overall Conclusions 
 
Introduction 
Each address in the City of York is located in the catchment area of one York primary school and at least one secondary school. The local 
authority has a duty to arrange school places for each school age child within its area, and serves as admissions authority for many schools, not 
including academies and some faith schools. Parents are required to submit an application for a school place, and can submit up to 5 
preferences for schools. For September 2016 entry, 91% of applications of secondary pupils were allocated to their first preference and 94.4% of 
primary pupils were allocated their first preference. 
 
Objectives and Scope of the Audit 
The purpose of this audit was to provide assurance to management that procedures and controls within the system will ensure that: 
 
• 
There is a robust process in place to monitor the requirements for school placements and identify potential issues 
• 
There is a robust process in place to allocate school places in accordance with admissions policies 
• 
Where action is required suitable action is taken to ensure each school age child in York is offered a school place 
 
Key Findings 
The council produces detailed forecasting information for each Primary and Secondary planning area which allows for future planning in relation 
to the provision of school places. In the future these will be published on the council’s website 
 
Admissions are managed electronically and the admissions system has a full audit trail of every step of the process, from individual applications, 
admissions criteria to allocations, rejections and waiting lists.  
 
The council, in conjunction with the schools in York, takes action to ensure that there are places for all pupils. As several York schools have 
converted to academies and more conversions are planned, as well as a new free schools being approved, the negotiations regarding how to 
address changing demand for school places may become more challenging, however the council is well placed to understand the requirements 
for school places across the city as much as is possible. 
 
The council publish several different data sets regarding school places and allocations. It is suggested that the assessment of how accurate the 
predictions were for demand for school places also be published to complete the picture. 
 

 
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Overall Conclusions 
It was found that the arrangements for managing risk were very good. An effective control environment appears to be in operation. Our overall 
opinion of the controls within the system at the time of the audit was that they provided High Assurance.  
 
 

 
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Annex 1 
Audit Opinions and Priorities for Actions 
Audit Opinions 
Audit work is based on sampling transactions to test the operation of systems. It cannot guarantee the elimination of fraud or 
error. Our opinion is based on the risks we identify at the time of the audit. 
 
Our overall audit opinion is based on 5 grades of opinion, as set out below. 
 
Opinion 
Assessment of internal control 
High Assurance 
Overall, very good management of risk. An effective control environment appears to be in operation. 
Substantial 
Assurance 
Overall, good management of risk with few weaknesses identified.  An effective control environment is in 
operation but there is scope for further improvement in the areas identified. 
Reasonable 
Assurance 
Overall, satisfactory management of risk with a number of weaknesses identified.  An acceptable control 
environment is in operation but there are a number of improvements that could be made. 
Limited Assurance 
Overall, poor management of risk with significant control weaknesses in key areas and major 
improvements required before an effective control environment will be in operation. 
No Assurance 
Overall, there is a fundamental failure in control and risks are not being effectively managed.  A number of 
key areas require substantial improvement to protect the system from error and abuse. 
 
Priorities for Actions 
Priority 1 
A fundamental system weakness, which presents unacceptable risk to the system objectives and requires urgent 
attention by management. 
Priority 2 
A significant system weakness, whose impact or frequency presents risks to the system objectives, which needs to 
be addressed by management. 
Priority 3 
The system objectives are not exposed to significant risk, but the issue merits attention by management. 
 

 
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Where information resulting from audit work is made public or is provided to a third party by the client or by Veritau then this must be done on the understanding that 
any third party will rely on the information at its own risk.  Veritau will not owe a duty of care or assume any responsibility towards anyone other than the client in 
relation to the information supplied. Equally, no third party may assert any rights or bring any claims against Veritau in connection with the information. Where 
information is provided to a named third party, the third party will keep the information confidential.