To ask if anyone is clued up on the challenge this week to VAT on school fees?

Surely cut off points are surely not at six figure salary level outside SE? Or can anyone just apply? Are bursaries not meant for much lower earners?

Yes they are but each school has its own cut off point. We can't afford VAT therefore we are entitled to apply for a bursary. We rejected but at least we tried

Aren't bursaries means tested where you live? Where we live families with parents earning six figure salaries would get a flat refusal.

That's the only reason we are going to try to figure out a way of affording the rise, because we want to keep our DD free of Labour. Putting DD in for a scholarship in order to then hopefully enable a bursary application etc. I am determined to keep her out of the clutches of Labour.
Education is too important to be put in the hands of politicians. Especially ones who hate what we stand for ie personal choice + freedom from the state.

We had our letter today, net increase of 17.5% after vat clawback. We can pay it without too much pain, but I do worry about others getting through the 4 years if Labour ignore legal challenge rulings.

I really don’t think I’ve ever been so angry about a policy or so disappointed in fellow parents who support it. Saying that, another mum did put it in perspective when she reminded me that Labour are likely to make state schools an identity politics battleground nightmare over the next few years. Even if you have to beggar yourself in the process, you will at least have happy and much less messed children/adults as a result of not switching to state. Can’t put a price on that, so I’m trying to think of it as paying for Labour to leave my kids alone with their whacky damaging nonsense rather than an education tax. Makes me feel better anyway.

There are only a handful of indy special schools.

That’s not true. According to the government website, there are 792 independent special schools in England and 52 NMSS in England. There are also some independent specialist post 16 institutions (there are 141 specialist post 16 institutions in England, most of which are independent, but I don’t know the precise number if it isn’t all).

My comment was in response to one about making money out of education rather than specifically vat. There are loads of independent specialist schools not just a handful, I can think of at least 10 within a 10
mile radius of where I live, obviously there are less children at each than a mainstream

From the TES

“The Treasury has said that VAT will not be applied to the fees of pupils with an educational, health and care plan (EHCP) if it states that they need a local authority-funded place in a private school for specialist support and that this place can not be provided by mainstream state-funded education.

However, where parents and guardians choose to send their child with special educational needs or disabilities to a private school, VAT will be applied to their fees.

The tax also applies where pupils have an EHCP but the local authority has decided that a private school place is not necessary to meet their needs.”

From my understanding, a child with an ECHP will still be subject to the VAT on fees, where the parents pay the fees. The only children not affected are those where the LEA funds those places, where a specific private school is named on the ECHP. The government information says

“Of the pupils in ISC schools with SEND, 7% have been placed by a local authority through an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This measure will not impact pupils with the most acute additional needs, where these can only be met in private schools. Local authorities fund pupils’ places in private schools where their needs can only be met in a private school. For example, in England, where attendance at that private school is required by a child’s EHCP, local authorities will be able to reclaim the VAT on the fees from HMRC.”

I’ve seen several reports in the press about sen children/children with ehcps being exempt but i think it’s possibly a misrepresentation of the fact that it won’t be a cost for parents with children with ehcps as their fees are paid by the la anyway rather than it being an actual exemption. Exemption for sen would be impossible to implement as where would cut off be

Didn’t they effectively ignore the impact statement on the winter fuel allowance? If they did that then I would be surprised if they take into account any adverse impact of VAT on fees, if indeed they did ask for an impact statement (assuming it isn’t a requirement).

I'm not sure about the FOI request but I agree it's really so bad

As I have Covid generation children myself I know the impact first hand and I absolutely dread to think of anyone with children their ages with SEND who will be caught out by this so that they can do some point-scoring pointscoring. It is truly quite awful. I guess for many in that position homeschooling will be the only option going forward.

The press was alluding to comments on SEND so I wonder if there is something they have and if anyone has put in a Freedom of Information request, that was all. I haven’t seen anything published.

What did Labour vote down recently? I thought it was doing an impact assessment

I haven't seen it either, I don't think it's public. I think there's a danger that this is a policy which will be pushed through for emotive reasons, despite a rational analysis showing that it will make things worse (rather like brexit, albeit nowhere near as harmful overall).

There are only a handful of indy special schools. Most indy schools are categorically not like this. Specialist SEN schools will be exempt if LA is paying.

The irony of this policy is that small indy schools will only be able to afford to keep going as part of chains and Chinese investment firms are already eyeing British indy schools up. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy: Labour claim these schools are businesses and tax parents plus increasing business rates which then reduces the number of parents who can use them and the schools are then forced to become businesses in order to survive and then yes shareholders end up profiting.

The absolute most money making that’s done out of education is independent special schools, which do tend to be run as businesses not charities so have shareholders and there’s no restriction on what profits they can draw out as dividends so the bigger the profit the bigger the dividend. Most if these charge upwards of £50k per child at lower end and some as much as £250k all paid by the tax payer. There are some that are fantastic and provide really good support for the children and really care but a growing amount are just in it as it’s a sector where a lot of money can be made

Could I ask where is the impact assessment? There seem to be allusions in the press that they have admitted harm to children with SEND: where is the full report?

How do you square with MATs when they are run for profit and have bloated SLTs + 6 figure Heads? At least charities have to re-invest whereas MATs don't. They literally make money (taxpayer money) out of education

All of which is spent on providing the services in the case of those that are in fact charities...unlike the academy chains who take money from the Government and ARE in fact, businesses. And please sod off with the sneery "gullible ones". I'm perfectly aware of my kids' needs the fact that state could not provide. For many kids, they may not need what PS provides, but some do, so paying for it, which I would MUCH rather not be doing is a necessity.

‘The ones that are businesses are businesses, the ones that are charities are charities. Labour had to be reminded of this in the courts as well, again nobody else is questioning this.’

Christ, don’t get me started on ‘charity status’ of some of these businesses… what a joke that is.
They provide a service, for a fee - a large fee, they are businesses with paying customers. Gullible ones, but customers all the same…

More likely Starmer will have to pull the VAT due to non compliance, Labour lose all credibility, Tory get back in and pull us out of ECHR and when Labour eventually get back in the country is further in the doldrums, but wait, Labour can finally fulfil their almost 100 year dream of destroying private schools - by which time, the country will be so poor there will be hardly anyone left in them. But it doesn’t matter - at least they got to destroy private schools!

Looking at recent political history and Brexit, that all sounds far more likely.

This seems to be a non-point! The ECHR is only relevant at all because of (flimsy) hopes that it will stop Starmer putting VAT on school fees.

By the time Badenoch might find herself in Downing St and pulling out of the Convention either the VAT will have been ruled to be ECHR-compliant, in which case whatever Badenoch does with regard to the ECHR has no impact on what she does with school fees, or VAT on school fees will have been dropped by Starmer as non-compliant, in which case the argument is dead and buried, because Badenoch sure as hell isn't going to use her new-found freedom to trample over human rights in order to introduce it!

The ECHR is only of relevance if the UK remains a signatory. Rather obvious, but Team Kemi have restated that shouldn't be relied on.