Schools as a business ...

When there have been revolutions in the past - say, in France or Russia - I didn't get the impression this was because the wealthiest 20% were thought to have too much power and money. I rather got the impression it was because a far tinier proportion of people had become so disproportionately wealthy and powerful that they pissed the rest of the 20% off...

Still, if you don't count the top 20%, then you are forced to count people who have professional advisers specialising in tax avoidance dealing with their money... Much easier to talk about those who have enough money to be taxed, but not enough to avoid tax... the ratios look a bit better, then...

(Mind you, the top 10% is also pretty silly, given that I should imagine there are also huge wealth differentials in that group...).

How about the wealthiest 10% to the poorest 10%? It's just ridiculous to compare the "wealthiest 20%" to anything, as there is such a colossal difference between those at the bottom of that band and those at the top - they are far from being a homogeneous group.

I suspect the ratio of the wealthiest 1% to the poorest 1% would be too embarrassing for words, as would the wealthiest 1% to the poorest 20%...

I thought we were talking about the richest 1%, not the richest 20%?... After taking tax and benefits into account, that ratio drops to what?

I suggest you take some maths lessons! If 1000x the current number shared the wealth currently shared by the top 1% that means it would be spread across 10x the population, so you will be shifting 90% of it overseas!

More importantly, you say that focussing on income tax is not enough then proceed to do exactly that. Try looking at the complete picture. In 2012/13 the richest 20% of households had an average income before taxes and benefits almost 15 times that of the poorest 20%. After taking tax and benefits into account that ratio drops to 4 to 1. Sounds a pretty progressive system to me.

It is worth looking carefully at whoever is running any school. For example a decade or two back Wandsworth Council's education department had a far better reputation than Lambeth's and their schools were correspondingly sought after. (Actually quite a model for economic generation as 30 years ago both boroughs were in a similar place economically but good schools helped bring in a more affluent working population including entrepreneurs, and an impressive virtuous circle was introduced.)

I am not sure I would worry too much about, say, venture capitalists. I was told at one point by someone who should know, that an additional 1,200 children looking for private school places are coming into London each year. This has resulted in a hefty expansion of prep school places (Fulham Prep, Knightsbridge Prep, Newton Prep and many more are less than two decades old and many existing schools have grown) leading to an 11+ log jam, especially for West London boys. The advantage of backing from venture capitalists is that they can raise the money for a big bang. First rate facilities from the get-go, a head-hunted Head, experienced Heads of Department recruited first. Build the reputaiton, wait five or so years and then put up the fees and reap the profits as parents clamour to get their children in. Each will have its own USP but they will only survive if they deliver what the customer wants.

My guess is that the need to balance the books early and thus recruit inexperienced teachers has led to instability in schools like the West London Free School. I would be particuarly interested in knowing who was behind any Free School I was considering and how much start up capital they had to get the school running.

One reason we ended up taking the private route was our state alternatives were not at all attractive. At the time the local secordary had 93% on free school dinners, and indeed when my son got to 11, our LEA was unable to offer him any place at all. Apparently at the time they were short 20 Primaries and 3 Secondaries. In fairness the local school has improved immensly, but is still seen as focussing on providing a safe learning environment for those from more challenging backgrounds rather than stretching the more able. Hence local disappointment when people heard the newly announced Free School will be run by an evangelical Christian group. It did not take too much Googling to find links between some within the Church and the creationist movement.

London's population growth means more schools are needed, both state and private. Governments (this and the last) have clearly decided that they cannot afford the capital funding and so have looked to other sources. This means it is more important than ever to know who controls policy at your child's school and what their motives are. I get venture capitalists and profit. I would be very wary of a non-mainstream religious group.

Wealth concentrating itself around an increasing small percentage of people is bad for pretty much everyone - there are only so many cars, yachts, private jets and houses one person can buy. Meanwhile, public services and amenities are constantly pared back and the disposable incomes of the masses decrease, which doesn't increase employment opportunities for everyone - the 1% don't need 99% of the world's population to cater for them... most people are thus surplus to requirements...

The incomes of the top 1% have increased far faster than their income tax payments... One has risen colossally, the other, "steadily."

So privatising the prisons may mean one big outsourcing contract which can fail badly -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23447437

We do have some privatised prisons. There is hardly anything, even essential services that dont involve some profit making companies along the way.

State schools often use temp agency staff and the agencies are profit making.
The police use contractors which are profit making (caterers, cleaners, consumables).
I can't think of any major industry which doesn't use any profit making companies.

You have!

The top 1% of earners pay almost one third of income tax. This figure has been rising steadily for some time. A decade ago they only contributed 20%. The bottom 50% of earners contribute around 10% of income tax. This has been falling steadily.

I think that all state funded schools and their governing bodies need to be considering the school as a business. A business in the sense that what you are looking for always is best value and to be in a position at the end of the year that what you got in as funding for the year, you have spent on giving all the pupils the very best possible education. That is not making a profit but working as in a company to derive maximum benefit to pupils.
When it comes to any school and especially Academies there is a need for a certain amount of cash to be retained within the school accounts as this is needed for cashflow during the year. It may come as a surprise to some but schools do not get the funding in annual amounts but in parts every two months in the case of Academies.
Other posters have mentioned the PFI contracts in schools and NHS and in my opinion that is why you do not leave very large contracts to negotiation between civil servants and senior leaders in the private sector. The later will and have, as these contracts prove, run rings around the civil servants.

prh47bridge sensible answer. Even in the fee-paying sector only 15% of schools are 'proprietorial' as opposed to charitable trusts, so only a minority are indeed profit-making. They do tend to get taken over frequently and most are non-selective prep schools.

straggle we only have an NHS as you describe because it was nationalised. Most countries have hospitals competing for patients. The Russians had a nationalised food industry, so it is possible.

All your comments about food could equally apply to health. There is no reason for the state to run all medical care or education, anymore than to run all supermarkets

Ds was at a 'managed for profit' prep. The head sold it on without telling the parents, the first we heard was via a letter the week before the start of that school year. After a little digging I discovered that it had been sold to a developer but they were unable to get access so she sold it to someone who wanted to own a school. The new head was a nightmare. I'd be a lot more wary of a one man band then a business running more than one school to be honest.

Free schools and academies cannot currently be owned by profit making companies.

The schools provided by these chains are not part of the state system. They do not receive funding from the government.

What matters, surely, is what works. If you can afford to send your child to a fee-paying school and it produces better results than other schools, does it really matter whether or not it is run for profit? I know this does matter to some people but personally, if I was looking at fee paying schools, I would go for whichever school was best for my child.

Not at all like for like. There has never been one massive State Farm or state procurer of food with a budget of £90 billion per year. There is no nationally prescribed diet, training in table manners, league table for the biggest carrots, Ofsted for cooking, or legal weight recommendations for employment. Not everyone needs or wants to eat pork. Some people tolerate oranges, others don't. Don't be daft.

Straggle so multiple food suppliers creates waste, gaps and has no overall benefit. Surely, under your argument, the essential service of providing food should be unified under the government.
NB BT had no alternate technology when it was privatised and is a natural monopoly (as are gas and electricity) because it is not worth running multiple cables to peoples homes.
However, as anyone who has dealt with the French telephone provider will tell you, competion and privatisation have benefitted us enormously.

Monopoly might not be the right word (I'll have to think about that). But I mean essential services that need to be unified rather than fragmented, where there's no alternative (e.g. with Royal Mail or BT there are at least alternative technologies as well as alternative private services for businesses). Internal competition can harm parts of the service and because at a local level, having competition or choice creates waste. So privatising the prisons may mean one big outsourcing contract which can fail badly - that's still a monopoly whether state or private. On the other hand an artificial internal market of multiple providers of schools or within health service could mean that a provider sets up in areas of surplus places and cherry picks places yet no provider steps forward to take over schools/services in challenging areas or circumstances. And smaller LA budgets mean reduced economy of scale and they also fail to be supported. So there is waste, gaps and no overall benefit.