Choice? What Choice? finds that parents often do not have meaningful options about where to send their children to be educated. Eleanor Sturdy and Sam Freedman, Head of Policy Exchange’s Education Unit also found increasing disenchantment with the academies programme amongst sponsors and clear evidence that local authorities are continuing to ignore the demands of parents in their determination to keep control of school provision.

In more than one-fifth of local authorities (LAs), more than 20% of parents fail to get a place at their first-choice school and 8.3% of admission decisions for secondary school places are appealed. In 17 authorities, more than 15% of secondary admission decisions are appealed.