VAT on private schools- facts only!

[CurlewKate]

Are there any actual figures for the number of pupils who have so far been withdrawn from private schools because of the VAT increase? And the number of new applications to state schools because of the VAT increase?

Again, it’s difficult to get hold of “facts”. Research suggests that the “facts” show that the increased state school spending isn’t materialising though.

https://www.schoolmanagementplus.com/bursars-finance/pupil-premium-funding-school-finance-cuts-sutton-trust/

“Schools are being forced to make redundancies and use funding for disadvantaged pupils to plug holes in their general budgets”
“….. just over half of secondary school senior leaders made cuts in teaching staff this year, up from 38 per cent last year. Half reported cuts to teaching assistants, up from 41 per cent last year and 55 per cent reported cuts to support staff, up from 51 per cent.
The figures are the highest they’ve been since 2020,”

https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/schools-face-ps630-million-cut-funding-next-year#:~:text=The%20gap%20in%20funding%20will,cut%20of%201.2%20per%20cent.

“The gap in funding will mean that the vast majority of schools - 75 per cent of primary schools and 92 per cent of secondary schools - will be forced to make cuts next year. The average primary school will see a cut in spending power of 1.1 per cent and the average secondary school will see a cut of 1.2 per cent. In total there will be a £630 million real terms cut to school funding. This puts at risk the Government’s commitment to recruit 6,500 more teachers.”

Our Prime Minister announced that the VAT on school fees is now funding the building of affordable housing. I think he may have forgotten the “facts”, where we were all told that the money raised from VAT on fees would be channelled into the state education system.

Chat CGP doesn’t always give you the full picture.

The calculations which Labour relied upon were those which the IFS published in their report. The figures the government used were not based on a fall of 54,000. 54,000 was a figure reported to have come from a “treasury memo”. Those figures were never used in the calculations.

And all the IFS predictions have been disproven now. In any case it was written by BFF of one of the Labour ministers tasked with bringing the policy in, so hardly impartial.

Chat GPT isn't exactly reliable as it only involves data in public domain and most of that data is several months behind the curve.
Labour refuse to collect data/monitor/review the situation. What does that tell you.

The IFS and Treasuey data didn't take into account that if between 5-10% of pupils leave a school then that school closes so ALL the children in that school have to leave. For many independent schools that means all those children then have to move into state schools because for majority of indy schools, there aren't a number of indy schools in their vicinity, they are the only one.

This policy disproportionately impacts the children from lower income households and those with SEND. All it is doing is making independent schools MORE elitist.

As someone else said up thread, lots of senior children won't be pulled out half way through so the full effects of the policy won't be seen for a few years when people are choosing to not send their children in the first place.it doesn't take long for a school to become unviable and close creating a snow ball effect.

Convenient for the labour government that the birthrate dropped off from 2009/2010 peak so the crunch in places won't be felt for a while.

However a couple of facts from my experiences

Ds' school haven't filled all their places this year. He was a high birth rate cohort and started year 7 in 2021. His year had 100 pupils. This year 73. That drop is not solely down to a reduction in birthrate

The catchment for places at the outstanding church state school where my DD is going is September shrunk from 7 km or thereabouts in all previous years to 2.1km this year.

Oh don't forget the 60 p breakfasts that the VAT was being used for.

Starmer then said any money raised was going on housing and defence, not schools

I'm going to do a foi request to ask what the vat receipts have been and where its been spent since Jan 2025

Good luck, lots have already tried. They refuse to collect data for a reason

I'll try ,😄. I don't see how they don't have the data??? They refuse to release it.

I'm also going to do a foi request to the department of education to ask how much funding they've received for new teachers, how many they recruited and how many breakfasts they have dishes out and where

CurlewKate · 03/03/2025 18:08
Interesting lack of response on this thread

Maybe posters realise you’re just trying to start a bun fight.

The DfE and ISC both do school censuses every January so will have the information then about the drop in pupil numbers in private schools. In the school I'm at, we're expecting around a 10% reduction in numbers next academic year.

2013 so 12 years ago. VAT hasn't been imposed for a whole year yet. So the fees almost doubled without the vat. Which party was in Govt during those years?
But you could contribute say 9k per grandchild?

Well considering around 90% of schools couldn't make the 60p breakfasts work so BP had to hire + pay "breakfast ambassadors"......I think we can take a good guess!

ISC do yes but independent schools don't fall under DfE. The ISC data is how we know about the 16K which have left this year.
I would be concerned about a 10% overall drop, unless your school has good reserves.

A doubling of fees in 12 years would be the same as an approx 6% increase each year. Which is not outrageous. So I’m not sure what your point is 🤷‍♀️

sorry, that was in reply to pedallleur

This policy has been a taunt from certain members of the Labour Party by getting at peoples children who they don’t like from the beginning. The lack of rationale, the gas lighting, the rhetoric (‘our children deserve better’), the smirking whilst talking about schools closing, the insistence of its only 7% children so who cares about their welfare and the refusal to do a proper pre or post impact assessment is way below the acceptable standards of a Goverment. It’s got to be one of the most ugliest domestic policies I’ve seen, completely motivated by spite and damaging in so many different ways. It’s very difficult to get the data because the Government don’t want to collect it (for obvious reasons), we probably won’t have clear data of the impact until Labour are out anyway and the policies are reversed. Hopefully at least in the future when Labour are trying to get re-elected and mention education, they will have the fact they introduced an education tax shoved in their faces.

Your OP requests facts but mentions wanting ‘facts’ on number of DC moving for a specific reasons (cost of VAT or school closures) hard to establish those kind of things without detailed surveys etc.

Good practice would be for government to have published information on things like:

• Pupil numbers and proportion of DC of each age group in private schools, by region.
• Private school closures.
• Tax revenue from private schools.

The position just before the change, estimated position after the change and available sources of data and qualitative information and views.

It also seems poor manners to ask for ‘facts only’ and provide none yourself.

We are the ONLY country in the world to tax the education of children!
That's a stain on Labour.

We are now educationally ideologically behind Nigeria, a country where only 25% of girls have a secondary education. Nigeria have just reversed their tax. Many countries eg Germany, have tax incentives for parents who chose independent schools because they understand that they are relieving a financial burden to the state + taxpayer.

Labour however are stuck in 1970s class warfare. The world has moved on, Labour hasn't.

I live in Surrey, our private school rates are as high as Edingburgh.

I cant share audited facts. But i know the local market very well.

There has been a few years where reception entry has been low due to birthrate. State schools have been reducing PAN or closing. This has made it very hard to gauge how much of the lower entries in private are due to VAT or birthrate.

A number of private schools have closed, some have merged. I know that entrance exams cut offset are easier too for years 3 /7/9

The impact I am most concerned about is sixth form. There are a number of strong state sixth form colleges which have always attracted pupils from the private sector. There is also a bit of a population bulge going through, so doubke impact.

The state sixth form colleges have almost universally removed thier level 2 offering to concentrate on A levels, and reduced thier vocational offering, they have also raised entry criteria.

They have seen bigger numbers from private doing the a levels.

This is devastating for state pupils who now have to travel a longer way to find a level 2 course or a level 3 vocational course.

A lot of these pupils are pp, they dont always get a travel bursary and they are in danger of dropping out of education.

The private school changes came in at the same time as uncertainty about vocational courses and funding as they are expensive to fund, so it was a double effect.

Anyway. Long rant. Nothing is joined up or thought through.

Fees went to 20k from 9.5k. is that 20k quoted inclusive of vat or exclusive? If exclusive your daughter still couldn't afford the 20k if vat had not been imposed.

It wasn’t me that made the original comment. I was just responding to your implication that fees doubling in 12 years was outrageous.

But, I do disagree with posters who say “well, if you can’t afford school fees with VAT, you couldn’t really afford them anyway”: a 20% increase on an already substantial financial commitment will be a problem to lots of people who were comfortable before. Just look at the uproar when mortgages increase after a (much smaller) interest rate rise.

Exactly.
The argument of "if you can afford X then you can afford Y" is ridiculous
It's like saying "you can afford a 200k house so you can afford a 400K house" 🙄

@Fearfulsaintsthats so difficult and sad for those pupils. It’s consequences like this that aren’t thought through and planned for. Every child’s education is important. The fact is parents who send their children to private school and then find this policy means they have to move their children will use the money (they are now saving) and resources to ensure their children get the ‘best’ available. I know, I was a private school parent.

I think it’s disgusting that there aren’t figures available on this. It should be analysed to see/process its ‘success’. Differences in birth rates can be factored in. As well as things like how much the SEN education bill has gone up and the cost to the government for military children.

Yes, and then she has disappeared.