AIBU that VAT on school fees makes no economical sense?

[fuckwitery]

Trying to research what it costs the state to put a child through school each year. Figures I've found show between £6 - £8k. We pay £13k per DC per year. That's prep, so will be more for senior school. So at the mo introducing VAT on these fees would add £2,600 to the state coffers. £4k for senior school.

We, and lots of others who just about manage to pay for private schooling, will be forced to take their children out. Therefore it's a NET loss for the state?

Or am I missing something.

"They have to work alone, but in class, on worksheets while the rest of a class does certain lessons. They are supervised/monitored and their work gone through in the extra lessons. The school gives them ESL lessons every day."

Just so you know, this is very unusual. Not the norm for EAL children in state schools at all. Although it probably should be. It's more the sort of individual attention you would expect in a private school.........

Can I add that equality of opportunity is even more of an issue for children with additional needs.

Who gets an EHCP or a local authority funded place at a massively expensive private special school, when they are now so hard to obtain? I can tell you - the parents with the personal and financial resources to negotiate the system and employ lawyers and specialists as advocates.

All the children I know with additional needs who've had properly funded and extensive support have had ferocious, skilled and determined advocacy by their parents, apart from a small number of severely impaired children who obviously couldn't manage at all in mainstream schooling.

Yes- the children at the private special school near us have the same sort of parents whose kids go to grammar school.

At present, that would require a change in the law to redefine permitted charitable aims in UK, removing education (which has quite high potential for unintended consequences for all charities).

RE. removal of charitable status:

"In her first major domestic policy announcement as Prime Minister, Theresa May last year said that elite private schools will only be able to maintain charitable status if they set up or sponsor Government-run sister schools."

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/private-schools-pay-tax-michael-gove-vat-boost-state-education-charity-status-funding-mic-a7597126.html

They will do bertrand
On the whole parents who have academic ability tend to get better paid jobs and then can afford private education. Otherwise their child on the whole does better academically and goes off to selective state.

I think there are a lot of confounding factors at work when looking at achievement with private school pupils / selective state.

Amount spend per pupil is also difficult to compare. Private schools have to fund their own buildings - building works come out of fees - that's not spent on education anymore than the new building cost for a new block in a state school is then attributed to those children's "fees" in a state school.

PP, rather than actually closing the sites, I would gradually turn them into state schools - plenty of room that way! In any case, we will have a demographic downturn in a few years soon (barring mass immigration etc), so that will relieve a bit of pressure!

Many of these public schools have numerous fine old buildings which are listed and require maintenance and conservation. When these are state schools, as you wish them to become, how will the councils afford to maintain them - which re the listed buildings, they are legally obliged to do.

[Grin]

I haven't heard that one before. We have to keep private schools because of the beautiful buildings.........

It's a sensible practical consideration thinking of some of the schools round here tbh. If they were to stop being private schools then they'd be sold - almost certainly for conversion to housing which would actually put more strain on the state schools. Unless transfer was made mandatory - and I think there would be legal issues there - then they would be too expensive for the council here to actually buy. Lots of grand old buildings in prime locations which developers would pay a fortune for.

Our council can't afford to properly maintain the many listed schools they already have, genuinely. They are falling apart. They also don't think ahead - as an example, old state school in a nice building, too small and in need of major upgrade. Council researched various options and decides to build shiny new school a few hundred yards away. New school is built to the current roll which means that before it even opens its full. There's new houses being built in the area which haven't been accounted for. They also had to make the catchment a bit bigger because the site they chose for the new school was outside it's own catchment area .

So what have they done with the big old high school building?

Sold it. For conversion to flats.

As usual Bertrand you've got the wrong end of the stick.
I asked how councils were going to afford the maintenance of listed buildings if they became state schools. If private schools were to be abolished then there are numerous other uses for their properties - turning them into state schools would be an expensive road to go down.

Sorry, I was being mildly flippant.

Whoever owns the buildings has the issue of maintaining them, not the state.

"In her first major domestic policy announcement as Prime Minister, Theresa May last year said that elite private schools will only be able to maintain charitable status if they set up or sponsor Government-run sister schools."

Oh yes, it's possible under current law.

It does mean shutting the school (unless a buyer can be found at full market value) and selling off all property, major assets etc, and then donating proceeds of all those sales to another similarly aimed charity.

And some people do want them closed down (leaving just those which are not charities) and this is a very effective way of making it happen quickly. Any overseas pupils will of course have to leave, but all the other pupils will need places in the state sector immediately. It's one of the most disruptive ways of going about it.

Setting up a mechanism to convert charity assets to private ones is controversial from a charity POV, but might have to happen. It would be a welcome step, I think, and there would be many takers.

"Whoever owns the buildings has the issue of maintaining them, not the state."

How can the state operate those premises as schools without paying the maintenance costs? Because unless they own them, they wouldn't be able to use them. The charity which previously owned them has to sell up as part of winding up.

Who else would be able to keep them as a school, other than the state?

"How can the state operate those premises as schools without paying the maintenance costs?"

Oh, sorry. I missed that the suggestion was that the sites be used for state schools. No, I agree that is completely impractical in most cases.

Charity law was changed in about 2011. bwefore then education per se and opera even if only enjoyed by the very rich was regarded as a good, a charitable thing, that it was a good to educate whoever you were educating. That was altered. Private schools with hardly any savings currently need to do things like a few bursaries, letting locals into the grounds to swim etc. Private schools with loads of funds have to do more such as helping by sending teachers to local state schools, sponsoring academies so I am not sure what extra Mrs May wants to impose on private schools particularly those that have very few funds rather than masses of endowments.

If 20% was added to school fees the schools could throw out children on bursaries and stop the public coming into the grounds so that would save some money so the fees might got up say 15%. I could cope with that although I would prefer a £5k voucher everyone could use who has children at any school they choose then topped up by the state.

"Charity law was changed in about 2011"

Can you reference the new law, or link to the key amendments?

Also if by 20% on fees you mean adding a new tax (at current prevailing VAT rate) that's totally separate to charitable status. The reason fees are exempt is EU tax law.

As private schools have to maintain / expand their buildings through their income, (fees) and state schools don't use their budget to pay for a new building, I think the comparison between it costs 5k to educate a child at state and xk at private a poor comparison.

Otherwise some chikdren who go to a new state school must cost quite in excess of private school fees?

Just looked at the Labour Manifesto and this point is indeed in there:

"To aid attainment, we will introduce free school meals for all primary school children, paid for by removing the VAT exemption on private
school fees."

Frankly giving free lunches to junior school children who aren't already on free school meals doesn't seem to be a particularly good use of any increase in funds to me. Charging some parents 20% more to subsidise the lunch budget of other parents doesn't seem to have merit.

We must have diversity in the system.

Otherwise we'd all be driving round in trabants! The middle classes there were not pushing for improvements in quality...

I agree- what a stupid waste of money!

It further underlines that they make silly spending decisions.

Look at what the IFS had to say about free school meals for all:

It's like a lot of Corbyn's stuff - it may not be a terrible policy, but it is also very likely not the best use of the money.

www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9202

"We must have diversity in the system."

Why?

Finland doesn't, and their education system is head and shoulders above ours.

And why does our system have to be organised along class and ethnic lines?

"As private schools have to maintain / expand their buildings through their income, (fees)"

Not necessarily. Many have wealth generating assets.

Class sizes are routinely larger in the state sector, particularly in primary. Many children in the UK are in class sizes of over 30, and this is going to get much worse over the next two years as schools get rid of teachers to save money. How many private primaries have children working in classes of thirty? How many fee paying parents would think this is in any way acceptable, even in a private school which ruthlessly excludes all children with significant social, learning or behavioural needs (as most private schools do)?

Why do parents with children in fee paying schools which they've chosen because of small class sizes support a government whose policies will result in massive class sizes in the state sector. Don't they have any shame?

Lots of private schools are not charities.
VAT on Education is nowt to do with Charity Status.
Its EU rules that cannot be changed unless there is a hard Brexit.

The EU law was changed just after I left my college.

Money goes to money. Remember that.