A report from the departing chief schools adjudicator, the last before her retirement, has claimed that many schools across the nation are breaking rules when it comes to admission arrangements, with a range of problems identified. 

Elizabeth Passmore's report claims that many schools are making the issue of admission more complicated than it has to be, with the processes used found in many cases to be "unnecessarily complex", "unfair" or "unclear". 

Dr Passmore went on to say that schools which are essentially the admissions adjudicator for themselves, which includes the likes of faith schools, are the most likely to offend when it comes to this area. The government has now vowed to review the findings of the report as well as making any changes necessary moving forward. 

Admissions rules across the country require processes to be clear and fairly laid out, so that parents can easily find out information on how places are allocated. 

The report stated that most state schools, or those which have their admissions controlled by local authorities, fall in line with these requirements. Dr Passmore said they "are almost always clear and uncomplicated so it is easy for parents and others to understand how places will be allocated".

However, when it came to other schools, she wrote that "the arrangements set by some own-admission authority schools have so many levels of priority that often it is unclear how the arrangements could actually be applied."

Complex arrangements discovered include numerous over subscription criteria, different sub-categories of places, more than one catchment area, feeder schools, banding tests and aptitude assessments, which Dr Passmore said does not serve children in the local area well. 

She also said that many of the issues could be sorted by simply putting admissions information on websites for schools in a very easy to find place. 

Margaret Tulloch of the Comprehensive Futures campaign group said the results of the report were worrying, and called for a full-scale review of the admission systems across the nation.