to want to abolish private schools' charitable status?

[minifingers]

Which costs the tax payer 100 million squids a year.

Schools justify having charitable status by saying they offer financial help to 'disadvantaged' children.

The 'disadvantaged' children they refer to are actually, almost to a boy/girl, highly intelligent, academically successful children who have outstandingly supportive parents (otherwise they wouldn't be researching bursaries/applying for schools/preparing their children for exams). In other words, not at all disadvantaged. These are the children who generally succeed very highly in the state sector too.

I personally think that tax-payers money should go towards supporting those children who are failing in education, not to those children who are already succeeding. Surely it's more beneficial for the children who are currently failing most severely in the state sector to have tax payers money spent on them, as these are the children who the tax payer ends up supporting through benefits/the prison system.

In addition, 'skimming off' this top layer of very clever children and sending them to be educated separately from other ordinary kids impacts on the learning of all the other children in the state sector - any of us who have done a degree/been in education know what a difference it makes to be in a class where there are a lot of clever/motivated people, how much more enjoyable and productive learning is.

Just to draw a mumsnet analogy - imagine if all the funniest and most interesting posters here were offered their own site - 'mumsnet gold', where they could be funny and interesting all day long and those of us who are not as funny and clever would be excluded. Imagine how much of a loss that would be to everyone here? we could rename the new non-gold site 'netmums2'

So, AIBU?

Take the £100000000 currently given to private schools and give it to state schools with the largest number of underachieving students to spend on supporting their education instead?

"A boy in the same year as my cousin is there free. He was in a string of care home, foster homes, he was behind in education, getting into trouble.
He got a free place at Eton"

Just wondering how you know all that?

I used to work for Oxfam :)

We absolutely had to think about levels of disadvantage. Every single charity does. I find the idea that you wouldn't really weird, tbh. How does that work then?

shockinglybadteacher it depends on what is written into each charity's aims. Some may have alleviation of poverty as an aim, others don't.

"shockinglybadteacher it depends on what is written into each charity's aims. Some may have alleviation of poverty as an aim, others don't."

Do any of them have "providing a privileged education for rich people" as an aim?

hakluyt

Not that I know of.

Whatever personal views there may be on how fees are totally out of kilter right now, it doesn't change the law on what constitutes a charitable purpose.

Is there any organisation which has actually produced a draft amended law to remove provision of education as a charitable aim, but let charitable assets be tranferred to private hands?

And if there is such a draft, has there been any reaction from other charities which provide education, and would have to change all their administration as well?

How my two examples lived was light years away from that but they could have been saved so easily. As I have said Jayden's father, we did not talk about. Tanique's father was disinterested, that's a kind word. That was one child who had serious intellectual ability and one with serious artistic ability. In an ideal world, Jayden would have gone to university instead of gone to the jail. Tanique would have been in art college.

I regally think your judgment about what Jayden and Tanique needed to thrive and reach their potential is a bit simplistic. Children like Jayden and Tanique often need good mental health support more than they need smaller classes and a private school environment. I have said it before but will say it again; Jayden and Tanique might be harmed more by being in an environment where other children's lives are the polar opposite to their own. Private schools can't always access the same mental health support as local authority schools can (I know this is the case in my area because I have worked closely with CAMHS).
Why would you want to put Jayden and Tanique in an environment where they constantly feel inferior (which they will because their home life is so opposite to that of their peers) and where they cannot get the support that they need to be mentally well? You cannot overlook these things just because you think that schools should be more charitable by offering places to children like Tanique and Jayden. Children do not thrive in school (regardless of whether it is private or state) if they have unresolved emotional or mental health issues.

Yabu. I drive past dulwich college's sports fields most weeks and they're magnificent. The trifling fact that neither me nor my kids will ever be allowed on the other side of the fence odd irrelevant. Taxpayers' money well spent, I say.

So we have had

1. Poster's showing evidence of private school working with the community
2. Poster's giving personal and first hand experience of under priviledged children receiving full bursaries at private school's that have changed their lives.
3. Explanation's that the charitable status is not there to reduce school fees for the rich but to help other's in the community.

And yet still certain posters argue that charitable school's are not charitable. Selective reading. Nothing will ever change some posters minds, even hard evidence.

"1) Poster's showing evidence of private school working with the community
2) Poster's giving personal and first hand experience of under priviledged children receiving full bursaries at private school's that have changed their lives.
3) Explanation's that the charitable status is not there to reduce school fees for the rich but to help other's in the community."

We have had anecdotal evidence of the first two. In the second case, mostly from our parent's generation. Apart from the poster who seemed to have an extraordinary amount of confidential information about the background of one Eton scholar. And as for 3, you have it the wrong way round. Schools were told they had to start helping others in the community in order to keep their charitable status.

Schools were told they had to start helping others in the community in order to keep their charitable status.

A ruling in 2013 enabled schools to be flexible on how they help the community in order to satisfy their charitable status.
They can just offer teachers on secondment to state schools or offer some lessons to state A level pupils for example. They don't have to offer bursaries or allow the community to use their on site facilities.
So technically, private schools could employ a couple of part time teachers and lend them to state schools for free, hence keeping poor kids out of their schools by not giving bursaries and keeping other kids off their grounds by not allowing their facilities to be used by the community.

A Charity Commission spokeswoman said: “Recent developments have confirmed that public benefit is absolutely integral to how a charity is set up and run.
“However, it is not for the commission to decide how this is carried out in the context of a charity’s activities – it is up to the trustees of fee-charging charities to decide how to make their services or facilities available for the poor to benefit.”Offering bursaries or assisted places;
• Sponsoring one of the Government new flagship academies;
• Allowing pupils from local state schools to use its swimming pool, sports hall, astro turf, playing fields or concert facilities;
• Preparing state-educated pupils for entry to top universities;
• Formally seconding teachers to other state schools or colleges in specialist subjects such as the sciences and foreign languages.
A Charity Commission spokeswoman said: “Recent developments have confirmed that public benefit is absolutely integral to how a charity is set up and run.
“However, it is not for the commission to decide how this is carried out in the context of a charity’s activities – it is up to the trustees of fee-charging charities to decide how to make their services or facilities available for the poor to benefit.”

Apologies I didn't manage to copy and paste that correctly but the full document can be found here:

www.charitycommission.gov.uk/media/535077/pb2_running_a_charity.pdf

haklyut

There is absolutely no point in saying anything because even when a poster is saying she does know someone from a poor background that went to Eton you are questioning whether she is telling the truth.

Unbelievable! You have made your mind up and will not change under any circumstance.

Just the fact that these schools say they'd close down without the tax breaks tells you that the cost to them of the stuff that they 'charitably' give away for free is vastly less than the benefits to them of the tax break?

Otherwise they could quite happily stop doing the charitable stuff & carry on without the tax break as a normal private sector enterprise?

Or is this too simplistic?

In answer to shockinglybadteachers post when she said "In some people's minds, being disadvantaged is "Daddy earns 100k, but Mummy only 30, and sometimes we have to cut back on a couple of things to pay the nanny."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2568302/Council-estate-schoolboy-wins-place-Eton-76-000-scholarship.html

theflyingpig

NOOOOOO! These schools wouldn't close down without the tax break. They would no longer be allowed to operate as a charity and therefore they would be required to sell their assets.

I know the thread is long but please read the many comments regarding why they would cease to exist. It is NOT because the tax breaks keep them afloat FFS.

The charity commission also produced some hypothetical questions which discuss the things that they expect fee charging schools to do in order to maintain their charitable status

www.charitycommission.gov.uk/media/625339/hypothetical-questions-considered-by-the-upper-tribunal-regarding-charitable-fee-charging-independent-schools.pdf

I can see the benefit of schools having charitable status but I do think that it would be a good idea for lots of these schools to contact every state school in year 5 and ask if there are any pupils who would be likely to pass the entrance exam. Perhaps they could offer some after school enrichment classes to these children and discuss bursaries and scholarships with the parent and even help with form filling if required. Obviously some parents won't consider private schools but some might if a bit of encouragement and assistance is provided. If we want social mobility to be increased as part of schools offering bursaries then perhaps doing a bit more to identify candidates who hadn't thought about private schooling would be a good idea.

In my examples no ones family was at all rich or middle class or had private school on their radar. They had two parents who were married and were loved and fed though (in dhs example, possibly less so my fathers to be fair).

There was definitely no £130k income or a nanny shockingly! That would be akin to my dds claiming charity for their education which would be obviously ridiculous.

They were sheltered and safe but would have not been supported in their education. Had it not been for teachers (both in the state system!!) putting them forward for the 11 pluses and them winning free places/busaries.

Both have now contributed fair whacks to the tax system in return to put another slant on it!

Thats why I asked about 'extremes'. It was a much finer point that what you reduced it to and explained but...thanks for the explanation anyway.

"I drive past dulwich college's sports fields most weeks and they're magnificent. The trifling fact that neither me nor my kids will ever be allowed on the other side of the fence odd irrelevant."

If you're local, why don't you use them? Most of their sports facilities are open to the public, and also used by schools in the Southwark Partnership.

AuntieStella, you're making the fundamental mistake of giving a reasoned example! It will be ignored. You are, of course, absolutely right. Most of the independent schools I know of have private sports clubs using their facilities out of hours. JAGS, as somebody else mentions above, has a community music school in its premises on Saturdays. Alleyn's has the National Youth Theatre using its theatre in the holidays.

MissUnreasonable, in my experience most primary headteachers in the state sector are very unwilling to promote private education in any way. So I doubt your idea would work. (My children's HT provided no advice whatsoever about secondary transfer beyond how to fill the form in.)

I suppose it's too much to hope for that anyone will take on board the point that £100 million of taxpayers' money is not being handed over to private schools. The point the OP is making is about a hypothetical amount of money that would be raised if private schools had to pay corporation and some other taxes.

Here's an extended quote from a report you can dowload from this link as a pdf, prepared by the House of Commons library on the legal position of charitable status and schools:

The 2013 Annual School Census by the Independent Schools Council (which represents the majority of independent schools) found that 82% of their member schools had charitable status: a total of 1,007 schools. Charities are able to take advantage of various tax concessions.

In oral evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee in July 2008, Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, then Chair of the Independent Schools Council, stated that, if charitable status were removed from independent schools, the cost to them at that time would be £100 million. She also gave evidence about other potential financial implications:

Q117 Kelvin Hopkins: By how much would fees have to go up?

Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: It is not a huge amount; it is about £200 per pupil. If you abolished them you would have to find another £2.5 billion to educate the children from the independent sector in the state sector which might cause a crisis…To pay for all that education might have an effect on the public finances. We estimate that £2.5 billion is saved by the independent sector in exchange for £100 million in tax breaks.

Dulwich College? The same Dulwich College that parachuted in to the Isle of Sheppy Academy, then pulled out when it realised that it had bitten off more than it could chew?

Hakluyt

Still blatantly ignoring facts and figures then
Still blatantly ignoring great examples of how private schools help the community.

MissUnreasonable, in my experience most primary headteachers in the state sector are very unwilling to promote private education in any way. So I doubt your idea would work. (My children's HT provided no advice whatsoever about secondary transfer beyond how to fill the form in.)

I suspect you are right but no doubt people will blame the private schools for this when in fact a lot of it is down to state school reluctance to accept offers from the private sector.

"Still blatantly ignoring great examples of how private schools help the community"

No. Some do and are wonderful. But some of the "help" is also smoke and mirrors. And does not get scrutinised too closely by the Charities Commission.