The county council is carrying out spot-checks on addresses for school place applications.

Council officers always act on information received about potential school place fraud, but they are now sending letters to a random selection of parents and carers asking them to provide proof of permanent address.

Although in these cases there may be no suspicion of fraud, the responsibility lies with the parent or carer to provide proof of residency by a specific date.

For the first time this year addresses on secondary transfer applications have also been compared to addresses held by all primary schools and again, where there was a discrepancy, documentary evidence of the permanent home address was required.

A 12-year-old boy recently had his county school place taken away by the High Court when his parents were unable to provide proof of his permanent address.

Anyone who is found to have provided false or misleading information on their admisssion form will be treated as a late application, and, where a place has already been allocated, it will be withdrawn if fraud is discovered.

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