Soaring numbers of parents are lying about where they live to get their children into leading schools, figures seen by The Times indicate.

An official investigation of local education authorities found that nine times as many families were caught cheating as two years ago. Most had used false addresses within the catchment areas of oversubscribed schools.

More than three quarters of the 31 councils surveyed by the Local Government Association (LGA) reported an increase in deception in recent years. Authorities detected 16 cases of parents lying on application forms two years ago; this rose to 50 last year and 147 this year. This would amount to 735 cases if extrapolated to cover all the education authorities in England.

But the number is just the tip of the iceberg because many parents will have escaped detection.

The rise in figures also reflects growing awareness of the problem and a determination by councils to stamp it out. Officials were tipped off in some cases by disgruntled parents who found out that others had lied.

Government data released last week showed that almost 20 per cent of children had been refused a place at their first-choice school. In some parts of London only half were admitted to their preferred school.

In the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, the number of fraudulent applications rose from five in 2006 to 50 this year.

Malcolm Eady, the council’s cabinet member for education, said: “The most common examples we uncovered were parents giving the address of the child’s grandparents or of a property they own but rent out to other people. Our admissions team knows every trick in the book and is successful in rooting out bogus applications.”

Lying about where you live to obtain a place is illegal under the Fraud Act. In most cases, however, the offer of a place is withdrawn, with no further action being taken.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said this week that the fairness of all schools’ admission criteria would be investigated. He told the Commons that Philip Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator, would write to all local authorities asking for a full set of their admission arrangements.

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