CAMPAIGNERS opposed to Kent's 11-plus have described as a whitewash a report considering if there should be changes to the law allowing parental votes on scrapping grammars.

The report was commissioned by the Government in 2005 after MPs criticised the legislation, saying it was flawed and a waste of money.

The Kent Messenger had been calling for its release under the Freedom of Information Act but our requests had been blocked until now.

However, its conclusions appear to dash campaigners’ hopes of changes that would make it easier to trigger parental votes.

The legislation has been persistently criticised by both pro and anti-selection campaigners. Labour gave parents the powers to stage referendums on whether to scrap grammar schools in 1998 but it has been used just once since that time.

Campaigners who oppose the 11-plus have complained it is impossible to use because of the bureaucratic hurdles involved, while supporters of selection have highlighted how £1.7million has been spent on ballots that have never taken place.

While the report, conducted by a former senior civil servant, concluded the ballot arrangements "have not in the past and still are not working as intended" it said it was not clear if any changes would "bring overall benefit".

It also said it was unlikely any alternative system could be devised "which would give rise to less criticism".

Kent campaign group STEP (Stop The Eleven Plus) said the report was a "cynical and shoddy cover up".

Spokesman Martin Frey said: "If you need proof, you only have to look at the list of those consulted by the report's authors.

"It does not include a single person with practical experience of a campaign, yet it was our strong arguments that led MPs on the select committee to order this report in the first place."

The report accepted that in a large authority like Kent, it needed about 40,000 people to sign a petition just to start the process but maintained that "theoretically", reaching such a threshold was possible.

But it was equivocal about whether changing the threshold would make any difference, arguing that since no petition had been triggered for seven years "it is not possible to gauge the level of local interest in holding a ballot a ballot...and removing selection".

It also sidestepped the issue of whether a loophole allowing the signatures of just ten people to kick-start the process should be closed.