By Gary Eason Education editor, BBC News website

Labour MPs are concerned about greater selection

England's independent chief schools adjudicator, Philip Hunter, has said there would be problems making the code on admissions legally binding.

In the Commons on Thursday the Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, said there was no need to make it statutory.

In an interview with the BBC News website, earlier this week, Dr Hunter said elements of the code would not translate readily into regulation.

He thinks the system might be better if all schools ran their own admissions.

Concerns have been raised by Labour MPs, who fear government plans for new "trust schools" might result in more selection of pupils.

In a sense it would make it easier to handle if all schools were their own admissions authorities, then you would know where you are Philip Hunter

Dr Hunter did not want to get "dragged into" the debate going on in Parliament.

But he said there were many areas in which many schools were already foundation or voluntary aided, and problems did not seem to arise there more than in other areas.

"It's much more to do with a frame of mind," he said.

"In a sense it would make it easier to handle if all schools were their own admissions authorities, then you would know where you are."

But he said local admissions forums would need "a bit more clout" in getting them all to work together.

At present, some reviewed the arrangements of all the schools in their area every year and were assiduous in referring problems to the adjudicators.

But some did not, even though they were supposed to.

He suspects there are more problems than they know about but where cases are not referred to them "because the forum isn't reviewing what's going on".

'Easier to teach'

He also said they received dozens of complaints each year about schools whose admissions arrangements seemed designed to bring in children who were "easier to teach" than others in the locality who had a better case for a place.

There isn't a single solution for the whole country and certainly not one that involves solving the problems in London and imposing that on the rest of the country

There was a particular problem with children looked after by local authorities.

The admissions code supposedly gives them priority, but this is now being enforced through government regulations - a case where the code was capable of being toughened, he said.

As for making the whole code statutory: "That's a matter for Parliament and I wouldn't want to get involved in that," he stressed.

"The only thing I would say is it wouldn't be possible to translate the whole of the code of practice into regulation.

"You can pick out bits of it ... but not the whole lot."

For example, a common criterion is to give priority to siblings of pupils already in a school.

It was "perfectly acceptable", he said, "but how do you regulate on that?"

'Cream off'

Another idea that has been discussed is the wider use of "banding" - to get a cross-section of children by ability.

Dr Hunter said it could work in some areas, particularly in London.

But he added: "Generally banding of that kind isn't appropriate for most of the country."

In south Staffordshire, for example, a number of secondary schools meet all the local demand for places so take in some youngsters from Birmingham and Walsall too.

"It does seem to me to be reasonable to ask them not to 'cream off' the kids that are coming in from outside, by some kind of mechanism such as banding or a lottery," Dr Hunter said.

What would not be reasonable would be to say you were going to be so fair to those applying from Birmingham, that you would send some children from Lichfield to schools in Birmingham.

"If you did that there would be a riot, and quite rightly so in my view."

He preferred a lottery, as being easier to administer than the sort of tests needed to allocate children to different bands.

But he said there was a general rule about admissions:

"There isn't a single solution for the whole country - and certainly not one that involves solving the problems in London and imposing that on the rest of the country."