Paul Barber, Director of the Catholic Education Service commented: “School admissions are extremely complex and are accompanied by hundreds of pages of legal framework, so the most likely causes of breaches in the code are unintended admin errors.

“The BHA ‘research’ only takes into account a small cross-section of schools and fails to represent the national picture outlined by the Office of School Adjudicator in its most recent report. 

“We expect all Catholic schools to comply with the code and local dioceses provide support for schools to do so. It is because of our admissions system that Catholic schools are the most ethnically diverse in England and contain higher than the national average of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

ENDS