An elected official has offered apologies after a technical mistake resulted in over a thousand families failing to receive notification about a decision regarding school enrolment.

Tory member Alistair McNair questioned why officials at Brighton and Hove City Council failed to spot that correspondence regarding a ruling from the Office of the Schools Adjudicator had been rejected by the email system.

The problem stemmed from every recipient’s address being placed in the BCC field, with the volume proving excessive for the system.

Local resident Jim Blackwood filed a freedom of information request via the What Do They Know platform to obtain details about the message.

Initially he was informed the communication had been dispatched as stated by council leader Bella Sankey and her deputy Jacob Taylor, who oversees school admissions.

However, he subsequently requested an internal review to determine how many messages had failed to deliver, which revealed all 1,156 messages had been returned with a notification indicating the message was not delivered to anyone.

Cllr McNair questioned why the council had not immediately disclosed the problem and asked why conflicting information had emerged, adding that it took a resident’s FOI request to expose the issue.

He also queried whether the authority would contemplate restarting the admissions procedure, which concluded on Friday, October 31.

Parents of year 6 pupils received their secondary school placements for September on Monday, March 2.

Cllr Taylor explained the authority had no intention of making operational mistakes, but the delivery failure notification had been misfiled by another officer.

He acknowledged the mistake and expressed regret, noting families should receive such communications and that those responsible were implementing changes. He maintained the original response was truthful as officials were unaware the delivery had failed and believed the messages had been sent.

Taylor added the council would not conduct a fresh admissions process because the only alterations involved maintaining previously announced admission figures at Dorothy Stringer and Blatchington Mill schools, which had received adequate publicity at the time.