To be annoyed that private schools have charity funding.

[Olympiathequeen]

They are not charities, they are businesses.

They do little or nothing for the local community.

They benefit by about £750 mil. They part fund bursaries for around half that amount.

Leaving them with a tidy little £300+ million profit at the expense of the taxpayers.

That money is desperately needed for public schools.

WTAF is the government doing?

Private school pupils would only be distributed within a small number of schools locally largely due to housing catchments. I think it would further enhance the divide between leafy comp and not.

So should we stop giving any state funding to state grammar schools too jassy or are they okay even though they also cause inequality. What about faith schools? What about schools in catchments where ordinary average earning folk can't afford to buy a house? Should we scrap their funding too because of the inequality that they create?

It is a quandary for a lot of us jassy.

State grammar schools and faith schools should not receive state funding because they should not exist.

But is it passed on on a few reduction though jassy or do some schools use it to widen the bursary finding to families on low incomes and to improve facilities which are shared with state schools and the local community?

Six - I don't know, I'm going the fact people suggest fees would skyrocket / schools close if charitable tax exemptions were removed. I accept my language was imprecise.

I think there is zero evidence for the benefit of grammar schools, and they should not exist. I also think that in areas where schools are oversubscribed, lotteries with demographic smoothing make much more sense than proximity criteria from both an equality point of view and in terms of removing a driver of house price increases.

Don't get me started on faith schools.

"And how would you preserve the tax exemptions of those schools who do open their opportunities to all regardless of means"

Could you provide a link to such a school?

I think something is wrong, therefore it should not exist for anyone.
Life is very simple for some people, isn't it?

Jassy
And before anyone asks, I am also against charitable status for private hospitals.

Even this one?
"We are not here to generate money for shareholders; we are a professional healthcare organisation providing services for the benefit of the public. By working with other local healthcare providers such as NHS Trust Hospitals and Primary Care Trusts, we help the local community and use hospital surpluses to treat patients with life threatening illnesses, without charge in St John’s Hospice and in their own homes. The Hospital is therefore able to provide free services to the public by subsidising St John’s Hospice through the provision of clinical and non-clinical support."
www.hje.org.uk/about/our-charity/

You have to look at each charity on its own merits.

"I think something is wrong, therefore it should not exist for anyone"

Anything which gives privileged people more privilege and further disadvantages disadvantaged people is wrong and should not exist. I donut think many people would argue against that...........

But by the very existence of my
Sons private school, my son who is a disadvantaged child (both financially and due to family circumstances) is being given a chance to gain some advantage which he otherwise wouldn't have if he wasn't in receipt of a 100% bursary. There are many economically deprived children at his school in the same position. Is it wrong that his school is providing these opportunities to otherwise disadvantaged children?

^But by the very existence of my
Sons private school, my son who is a disadvantaged child (both financially and due to family circumstances) is being given a chance to gain some advantage which he otherwise wouldn't have if he wasn't in receipt of a 100% bursary. There are many economically deprived children at his school in the same position. Is it wrong that his school is providing these opportunities to otherwise disadvantaged children?^

Which is lovely. But public policy has to look at the macro - what is the overall picture.

I'm really pleased that the current system has been beneficial for children like yours. However that doesn't mean it's a net public good.

I can on,y think of one school that gives a significant number of 100% bursaries.

But as I have said before, I am not arguing for the abolition of private schools. I am too much of a realist for that. The issue here is whether or not private schools should have charitable status. Which, self evidently, they should not.

Chazs, I see what you're getting at but that is a really tricky one for me. Should any organisation with a charitable arm get tax relief across its separate profit-making operations? I'm not so sure. And I'm also uncomfortable about the privatisation/outsourcing of NHS services.

Bertrand maybe it's area specific? I can think of five private secondaries in this area that are giving 100% bursaries. (Area being say 20 mile radius)

Just to add they make a point of giving a number, not just one or two

JassyRadlett I actually agree with you on your points on grammar, faith and outsourcing of NS services. I would also not be upset if there was a change in the law that meant private schools paid tax, as I do believe the £200/pupil/year is a negligible amount that would be absorbed into the system somehow. I just take massive exception to the rhetoric that parents who privately educate are getting something additional from the 'system'.

In 2014 it looks like there were 5000 100% bursaries in the UK. Not a particually significant number

I think that is 5000 across the entire indy school population as well, not 5000 in each year.

That particular hospital is solely a charity not linked to any profit making organisation. It was originally founded by nuns. I understand the concerns about schools like Eton still having charitable status, all I want to say is there isn't always a blanket solution.

Link for above 5000 number
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationadvice/11167178/Paying-for-private-school-what-you-need-is-a-bursary.html

Yello, I agree that they aren't directly - and yes, I was annoyingly stupid in how I described it. Though there will be an indirect benefit for many if not all (because of those schools that apparently direct the entire tax relief to bursaries), either through fees or enhanced provision paid for with the money saved.

But many if not all are getting an indirect benefit,

Chazs, looking at the website the acute-care hospital is profit-making, with the profits going to the hospice, enabling its charitable status

The largest predictor of childhood achievment is not state vs private, but parental involvement.
As we are all after fairness, and not all parents can or want to be involved in their childrens education, the morally fair thing to do is to force all parents to be completely uninvolved.
This will allow neglected children to shine, as we now have a level playing field.

Jassy
Lots of charities engage in profit making activities. Charity shops, sales of Christmas cards, investment in the markets. It's what they do with profits that is charitable.

So less than 1% of private school kids on full bursaries. Hardly massive evidence of charitable activity.

It's far easier said than done, but as a taxpayer and citizen of this country as well as a parent, I want all state schools to be good. I genuinely believe if that were the case only a tiny minority of parents would pay fees.

As it is, however, we are a very long way from that, for all sorts of reasons.

1. There seems to be a huge disconnect between most people's vague desire for better public services and willingness to pay more tax to fund them. Pity Labour is in such disarray - it ought to be easy to make that case at the moment.

1. I don't know which body (if any) now takes an overview of school places for each area - I know it used to be LEAs but the government seems to have a very dim view of them and for all I know doesn't even let them do that now. Free schools and academies appear to spring up with little regard to whether there is genuine need and LEAs seem not to be able to set up community schools very easily. Anyway, back in the days when it was the LEA, in London anyway it was actually an accepted policy not to provide enough places in state schools for every child, because it was assumed that about 10% of children would not be attending state schools.

One of the reasons for the huge squeeze on state school places in London in recent years was that after the recession a significant number of parents decided they couldn't afford fees any more and wanted to take up their state school place entitlement. Cue mayhem, because those places did not exist. During the years of falling birth rates (i.e. 80s and early 90s) the LEAs had closed schools and sold off the sites, following central government orders and funding cuts. Not so easy now to magic up extra places when the sites have been built over.

£200 per pupil per term seems a very small price to pay if it saves the state £5000 pa per pupil or whatever the state school funding would be, not to mention the capital cost of building extra schools.