Kent County Council is to launch an inquiry into whether more should be done to give children from poorer backgrounds a better chance of securing a place at a grammar school.

KCC leader Paul Carter announced the setting up of a commission to investigate whether enough was being done to help less well-off families to get a place at one of the county’s 33 grammars.

The news comes after the government gave the green light to a new satellite grammar school in Sevenoaks.

Scroll down for audio

That annexe will be run by the Weald of Kent Girls Grammar School and has re-ignited the debate over selective schooling.

Critics say that currently, the existing system is skewed to those parents who can avoid private tuition and that the council's announcement of a commission was a tacit admission that grammars disadvantaged less well-off families.

Cllr Carter said he wanted to examine if more could be done to improve the social mobility of Kent’s grammar school intake and queried whether primary schools were doing enough to encourage children to take the test.

Figures suggest that Kent grammar schools have proportionately fewer children on free school meals than non-selective schools - an indicator that underlines claims that poorer families are disadvantaged.

Other data shows that many grammars, particularly in west Kent, take large numbers of children from fee-paying prep schools.

The commission is to be headed by Cllr Jenny Whittle, a former cabinet member for children’s services.

She said that all options would be under review, including whether there could be a lower pass rate.

“We need to look at whether children on free school meals, for example, are encouraged to enter the test; we should look at quotas and the idea of bursaries.”

It is understood that the issue of selection and the challenge of getting poorer families to enter the test came up at the Kent Conservatives annual meeting last week.

A group of grammars in Birmingham have already moved to a system designed to help less well off children secure places.