Schools admission chaos blamed on computer problems

Problems with a new £1.5m pan-London computerised schools admission system have left thousands of schoolchildren in the capital without a secondary school place.

The secondary schools admission project was supposed to allow the 33 London boroughs and seven councils to pool information and co-ordinate the applications process for the capital.

The project is being run by Arete software, which developed a central data hub that draws information from and streams data to the existing software systems used by the local education authorities (LEAs) of the individual boroughs and councils.

For many boroughs the process has gone relatively smoothly but eight using Capita software have had problems connecting to the Arete system, leaving an estimated 2,300 pupils without a confirmed secondary school place for the start of the next academic year.

LEAs in London now face a race against time to allocate all the remaining pupils before the 15 March deadline for parents to accept or reject the choice of school offered.

Capita played down the problems and said only two of its boroughs did not complete the dispatch of admission letters by 2 March.

A statement issued by the company said: "Across London all providers in the run-up to the distribution of admissions letters this year have experienced problems with the quality of data exchanged such as duplications and difficulties due to disparate software systems attempting to communicate with the hub and each other."

Arete did not respond to a request for comment.