A NEW school admissions procedure is being set up in Bolton in an attempt to make sure more pupils are offered a place at their first choice of school.

Starting in September 2004, Bolton Local Education Authority will co-ordinate arrangements for all state secondary school admissions within the borough.

The Education authority will act as a "clearing house" for secondary schools, including those with voluntary aided and foundation status, in a national effort to cut bureaucracy for teachers.

Parents are to be handed a single form by education authorities to apply for secondary school places under a range of measures to tackle red tape.

In September 2005 the LEA will also start co-ordinating admissions for primary schools.

Shabir Fazal, assistant director of Education and Culture at Bolton said under the current system primary schools and some secondary schools have their own admissions process and this results in some parents receiving three or four offers from their preferred choices of schools while other parents receive none.

"We are trying to make it all co-ordinated so it makes sense at a local level."

Admission authorities, including governing bodies of foundation and voluntary aided schools, will still be able to apply their own criteria to decide which child was eligible for a place.

Parents will be asked to list up to three choices in order under the streamlined system.

School standards minister David Miliband said: "Rather than every parent writing to send in their application form to each school, it will be co-ordinated at LEA level and places will be offered by schools in the normal way."

Mr Fazal added that Bolton already has a well co-ordinated admissions process at LEA level as 14 out of the 16 secondary schools already use LEA admission forms.

He said the LEA had a good working relationship with the remaining two schools, Canon Slade and St James'.

The move is one of 125 measures outlined in a new report Reducing Red Tape and Bureaucracy in Schools produced by the Department for Education and Skills and the Cabinet Office. The report was drawn up after a year-long project involving interviews with 500 frontline staff including teachers, headteachers, support staff and members of local education authorities.

Other measures in the report being taken forward include Key Stage 3 English markers being subject to a more rigorous monitoring.

The report said that the accuracy of the marking of National Curriculum tests has sometimes been inconsistent. The problem was mainly associated with Key Stage 3 English marking.

It has led to a need for teachers to double check papers.

The measures are part of a blitz on red tape and bureaucracy in schools by the DFES, including an aim to halve the volume of mailings to schools by 50 per cent by the end of this school year.