VAT and Bursary impact

This makes horrifying reading about the state of the SEN system https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/aug/04/special-educational-needs-system-england-utter-disarray-ombudsman-amerdeep-somal The VAT plans will add an unknown number of additional children with SEN needs into the state system. According to the Labour manifesto, not a single penny of the predicted private school VAT revenue will be spent on special needs education.

If you need advice on the ehcp process and are in the south east SOSSEN often hold monthly drop in clinics. Or online chats.

I'm on a local ehcp experiences group on FB. So goggle "ehcp experiences" and your county. Ours is very active, very helpful.

Always appeal. Parents win over 80% of appeals. There are two case laws you need to look up. Nearest available school to meet need, not undue cost to tax payer. I think this one? Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council HS 800 2010.

Also note that you have two months to appeal, if your going to appeal you might want to look up expert witnesses ( EP) ASAP as some have a year waiting list. So consider that.

It's all a minefield. But it's all doable. My son has been in a independent SEN school for seven years with a ehcp. I had no solicitor or legal team.

Ideally realy labour Needs to open more SEN schools for kids that are academically able. There is only one state school that sits gcses in my huge county neighbouring London. How is that right? For us it's was indi sen or nowhere and now labour want cut off that route for some who can only just afford it.

@Takeachance18 Yes of course, I’m aware. We did all the EHCP paperwork back in January only for the LA to refuse to assess. In hindsight we should just have pressed on at that point but at least everything is prepared. Waiting to hear back about bursaries but not hopeful as I’m sure there’ll be inundated. We’ll make it work in the short term somehow.

Thank you everyone who is posting with this level of detail here it’s very helpful as someone just setting out in EHCP journey. Please could you note the name of the case if you have it TwistyIxzy? This is all helpful as a v concerned parent.

I’m so sorry to read of everyone for whom January is going to bring a lot of stress and uncertainty and possibly upheaval for your kids. It’s incredibly unfair. I’m trying to get it together to write to my MP. I feel like they really need to hear these impacts. Now is the time that they are making up this policy on the hoof. We should try to inform them so that they have taken into account our concerns. I’m not saying this is easy or will ultimately change things completely as this is a totemic policy unfortunately. But its very important to make your kids needs heard to MPs.

Do you mean the legal fees to the LA?

If you are considering appeal to get a ehcp I'd do it ASAP as it's taking a year to hear appeals right now.

For one child I did an appeal to asses, then to issue, then contents, then to name a indi SEN school. Took me four years but I could have named in year 3 I wanted mainstream to work so didn't. I took 4 years.

How much is the vat? If it just 2-4k you could be paying that to get a private EP. I don't know many people (any) winning appeals for costly placements without a good EP report as ehcps are evidence based. You need really good evidence much more than legal help. Weight up your costs.

Appeals are exhausting. I have done more appeals than most ( ie a lot more than 4, more than double that personally for my 4 kids).

Get onto ipsea and sossen website asap.

If you get a echp but the LA won't pay the fees, it's looking like you can claim the vat back from what my sons school is saying. But basically it's not all certain yet

Plan for about 24 months plus of paying fees - it isn't simply applying - if they refuse at first stage to even assess - year wait for tribunal, assess, refuse to issue, another wait, then issue with mainstream named, appeal, wait for tribunal- yes you may win in the end, but could easily be another 2 years of fees, plus cost of legal support if you use, which I know parents pay £50,000 for. Add LA's are under pressure to reduce independent placements.

The recent higher court has only asked for another tribunal panel to reconsider as child's views not considered properly - it may still fail when reheard at first tier due to cost - but it is definitely worth noting about childs view (and both schools were types which must be named, unlike an independent school).

There are a lot of legal challenges in the pipeline, a large % from SEN perspective. FYI very recent appeal case was upheld to keep child at the school of their choice based entirely on the child's wish to stay at that school even though LEA wouldn't name it in the EHCP.

@caringcarer We’ve got a pretty good shot, 3 autistic girls in DD’s year with EHCP’s. SEN barrister also seems to thinks so too. We know a couple of other families in the same boat doing the same. It’s either fight to keep them at their respective schools or homeschool which wouldn’t be feasible as I need to work.

Respectfully, the main problem I have is a VAT bill for a service I don’t completely pay for.

Well, of course you are right. But I went one step ahead in case you will not be able to pay and decide on state option

Respectfully, the main problem I have is a VAT bill for a service I don’t completely pay for. That I never budgeted to pay for, because a lovely Trust said they would never withdraw support. Until they did.

I know your post is meant kindly, and I agree with it entirely. It’s just this is our life. And our child’s life.

We actually live next door (literally) to DC school - we moved so we would save money on the commute. We can’t afford to move again TBH. Our local high school is closing wing by wing, it’s not very good, mostly empty and won’t take new pupils due to mothballing.

I don’t know what January will bring.

I'd not be so certain the LA will cover the cost of independent school fees. I know a few DC stuck in state schools that can't adequately provide for them but they stay there anyway. LA argues they can be provided for there even when it's obvious the provision is inadequate. They are waiting g for special school provision but it's all full. Not enough special school provision in state sector. More special schools need to be built.

My DD got a scholarship to a very good independent school years ago she's an adult now but this school was incredibly generous to several state schools in the area. They were allowed to have large drama productions at the independent school and staff there even helped with lighting, costumes etc. They also hosted several sporting events through the year for multiple local schools all at no cost. Without this I don't think my DD would have even wanted to try for the scholarship. We didn't have much money and only entered her because her form tutor had spoken to DD about it and convinced her it was a good opportunity and her other teachers advised we should. She got a 50 percent scholarship and topped up with a 50 percent bursary. I think with VAT added to fees many schools will have less money for these type of bursaries which is a huge shame.

The main problem you have is that if you transfer your kid to state it will be a random school where he/she gets the place. Unless you move house to the street just by the good school and wait and wait until the place appears and then your DC will be first for in year transfer.

I think placing kids in private is safe only for very very rich as small life changes will not affect for them affordability of a private school.
Stepping into the state school game is really challenging at a later stage than y7

Yes. It’s been life changing for us. Obviously we wouldn’t have sent DC to that school if we hadn’t got the (massive) bursary. When we accepted it, their letter said ‘we will never withdraw support from a child unless there is a change in parents circumstance.’

Obviously that’s now different due to VAT.

This policy is all about Labour appealing to its base. It’s the hunting bill of the Blair government. Its politics. It’s not about children or state schools. It’s putting down a marker that richer people are fair game.

Just to correct pp above, Bucks is a grammar county. There’s testing at 11 for every child and you pull out if you don’t want it. The grammars are not private schools and only a few private schools for secondary dc exist here as the market isn’t huge.Also if you can’t get into a Bucks grammar, Wycombe Abbey will not be on the agenda either. It’s also wrong to think the non grammars are poor. The vast majority are good. Some have around 30% higher achievers in them and results are pretty robust when compared to many comps.

Mmmmm yes and no.

If you pay for a private knee replacement the odds are your surgeon works for both NHS & BUPA. 3 days a week NHS, 1 day BUPA. You’re not helping the NHS by going private - all that’s happening is it’s preventing the NHS putting on another operating list as there isn’t a surgeon available, because she’s over the road coining it in, and good for her.

Anyway. We digress.

Same as many schools. We predicted this would happen and it seems to be pretty consistent across the sector that bursaries are being stopped/reduced.

I am wondering this too. My DC was 75% bursary last year and has received 50% this year. It’s not from the school - it’s from a private bursary Trust.

They have said they can’t support from next year due to VAT. They sent me a very firm but polite email.

The comparison with Brexit is pretty far fetched!

Yes, but sometimes it's particularly stark, when politicians are particularly deceitful. Brexit was one example. I think this is another.

I agree that a lot of the problems are about money, but there are so many factors. Low attendance, particularly post Covid. An explosion in SEN and mental health support needs in the last decade or two, which nobody seems to be able to really understand. Appalling behaviour in some schools. Endless assessment and box ticking requirements on teachers and school leaders, plus an expectation that schools and teachers will plug gaps in what really should come under social care. Inability to attract and retain teachers, which may be partly pay related but is also to do with the issues above (and I suspect also the inflexibility of teaching to wfh etc compared with other graduate level careers post Covid). An explosion in tutoring, which leads to greater inequality even within the same class in the same school. Historic running down of extra curricular provision within schools. Etc.

None of this is the new Labour government's fault. But the sum total of their plans to fix things seems to be to run universal breakfast clubs (yet more requirement on schools, and will it actually achieve much?) and recruit 6,500 new teachers (how, given they're leaving in droves?), and to fund all this by imposing a tax on a small number of people who don't use the system, and which may not raise much if any money anyway, and will have various negative impacts (on individual families forced to move, jobs in schools which close or seek to cut costs, reduction in bursaries etc).

I absolutely do see this as Labour's Brexit.

Being manipulated? Surely that goes across the whole political spectrum across every issue. Might as well have a dictatorship if that’s how you feel about people’s relationship with politics.

are being manipulated into believing that private schools are both the reason for the problems with state schools

In some areas it is actually the case. But grammar schools do it even more in so called grammar counties.

Basically if top performers go private or grammar, naturally state school have worse results, less motivated kids.
But this is not the core issue. The core issue is that state schools are underfunded. Tories made massive cuts and school budgets shrank

I agree that those on the socialist end of the spectrum have always had a problem with private schools (plus private health etc). But the difference now is that a much larger number of people who are otherwise pretty politically central or even right of centre are being manipulated into believing that private schools are both the reason for the problems with state schools and also the potential solution, and have suddenly become single-issue socialists. Again, just like Brexit: there were always Eurosceptics who hated the EU, but what Johnson and Farage managed to do was to whip up misplaced Euroscepticism among a far wider group of people by playing on people's fears and anger and very cleverly redirecting them against the wrong target.

@potionsmaster 👏 👏
I also went to a good state school and so nobody really cared who went state and who went private.
It does feel very Brexit-like in its disingenuity.