Parents left waiting on school places

IT failure being investigated by city council

IT problems which left parents waiting 11 hours to find out which primary school place their child had received are still being investigating.

Peterborough City Council is looking into the problem which frustrated parents who stayed up until 12.30am on Monday morning to find their child’s offer online, only to see the website was not working.

The failure occurred despite residents being increasingly encouraged to use council services online, which was behind the decision to close the cash office in Bayard Place earlier this year.

Moreover, the council’s website crashed in late February, preventing it from updating parents on school closures for a couple of days.

A council spokesman said: “We are still investigating the IT problems that caused delays with online confirmathe tion of primary school places on Monday morning and are working to ensure this does not happen again.

“We would like to assure residents that they can use our IT services with confidence and that whenever issues do occur, we always work to rectify these as quickly as possible.”

Approximately nine out of every 10 pupils in Peterborough received a place at their first choice primary school.

Out of the 2,821 parents who applied for a place before deadline, 91 per cent were offered their first preference school. The figure is down slightly from 91.4 per cent in 2017, but higher than the 87.8 per cent in 2016.

In total 98 per cent of parents were offered one of their three preferred primary schools with around 5.8 per cent being offered their second preference, and one per cent their third.

In 2008 there was a total of 2,222 requested primary school places, compared to 2,821 this year.