The Resolve Offers Routine for Fair Banded Receivers

When you run the Resolve Offers routine for a receiver using fair banding only, One takes the following actions:

1. One stores the PAN information of all home Local Authority receiver bases in the transfer group.
2. One sets preferences that meet either of the following criteria to Q (No Longer Required):
   • Any preferences that are of a lower rank than the first offered place for that student.
   • Any system generated preferences with a preference number greater than the Process Start Number (along with any associated band preferences).
   There are some exceptions to this process:
   • One does not update preferences whose existing offer status is either R (Refused by LA) or X (Refused by Parent).
   • One does not update preferences for any LAs that are not coordinating LAs associated with the transfer group.
     For example, coordinating LAs are not used in Wales. In this circumstance, different LAs may each make an offer, so these offer statuses are preserved.
   • If the highest offered preference is for a receiver in a subgroup that is marked as Do not include in offer processing, then any lower preferences are only updated to Q (No Longer Required) as long as they are not also part of a subgroup marked as Do not include in offer processing.
3. One converts all offered places for the students to P (Provisional), Y (Allocated) or Q (No Longer Required). Students that are associated with more than one band for a preference are offered a place in a higher band, with the band offer status of lower band preferences set to Q (No Longer Required).
   The routine used at this point differs depending whether the student's first preference is offered:
   • If a banded school first preference is offered, then the status of the band preference changes from O (Offer) to Y (Allocated). Any lower preferences are changed to Q (No Longer Required).

     Preference Number	Original Offer Status	New Offer Status
     1	Offered	Allocated
     2	Offered	No Longer Required

   • If the first offer is not the student’s first preference, then the highest offered preference is set to P (Provisional). Any lower preferences are set to Q (No Longer Required).

     Preference Number	Original Offer Status	New Offer Status
     1	Not Offered	Not Offered
     2	Offered	Provisional
     3	Offered	No Longer Required

4. One updates the in-band and total Offer, Allocation/Acceptance and Provisional Allocation counts for all home LA receivers.
5. One checks the PAN to see if the current base has been filled with students who have an offer status of O (Offer).
   • If the PAN has been reached, then One begins to resolve provisional offers (detailed in step 6).
   • If the PAN has not yet been reached, or if the PAN was reached but places have been freed up by the Resolve Offers routine, then One allocates free places at banded receivers to students who currently have an offer status of N (No Offer) or W (Waiting List) for a particular band. Places are allocated to the students that are next in the band's ranked list.
   This process of freeing up places has a cascade effect. For example, a place freed up for student A means that their current provisional offer can be freed up for student B, and so on. One processes the receivers three times, ensuring that the base and band PANs are updated to offer the maximum number of places possible before the processing has finished.
   One allocates places differently depending on whether the receiver is an OAA receiver or not.
   For OAA Receivers
   One processes any preferences whose band offer status is either N (No Offer) or W (Waiting List) in band rank order.
   For example, suppose that a student has an allocated or accepted place at one of their lower ranked preferences and has a N (No Offer) or W (Waiting List) band preference for a higher ranked preference band(s). If a space in a higher ranked preference band is freed up by Resolve Offers, the student is given a place at the higher preference. This preference is changed to Y (Allocated) if it is the student’s first preference, and P (Provisional) if it is not.
   This process applies to both on-time and late applications and still runs if there is another (lower ranked) preference with a main offer status of Y (Allocated) or A (Accepted) for the student. 
   For Non-OAA Receivers
   One processes the highest-priority band (i.e. band 1) first. Offers are then resolved for the next-highest priority band, and so on.
   Within a band, One first tries to fill available places from ranked preferences (regardless of whether they are late or system-generated preferences) within that band, where the band Offer Status is either N (No Offer) or W (Waiting List).
   • One processes these No Offer or Waiting List preferences in order of the existing band rank (highest first - e.g. 1, 2, 3 and so on, where 1 is the highest).
   • One does not re-sort the list by oversubscription criteria and recalculate a rank. Instead, One uses the existing rank for home non-OAA schools which have been set by the Make Offers routine (for all home non-OAA receivers), and the Re-rank Waiting List process for individual receivers (if changes need to be made to the ranks after the Make Offers process has been run, for example).
   • One does not allocate/provisionally allocate places to unranked students.
   If the available places can't be filled from students within the current band (because there are not enough ranked preferences with a band offer status of N (No Offer) or W (Waiting List)), then One fills the remaining places by pulling students with ranked preferences whose offer status is either N (No Offer) or W (Waiting List) from that receiver’s other bands.

   More information:
   Resolve Offers Example for Fair Banding Non OAA Receivers.

6. One sets each home or coordinating LA student's highest ranked provisional preference to Y (Allocated). All subsequent preferences are set to Q (No Longer Required)..
7. One updates the main offer status for the preference to the most positive of the associated band preferences, using the hierarchy:
   • A (Accepted)
   • Y (Allocated)
   • P (Provisional)
   • O (Offer)
   • W (Waiting List)
   • N (No Current Offer)
   • Null
   • X (Refused by Parent)
   • Q (No Longer Required)
   • R (Refused by LA).

One does not allocate places to unranked students within the band, even if there are remaining places once all ranked students have an allocation.