To be annoyed at The Guardian largely because it is such a dump solution - private schools

[Dlwch276]

So as part of their recent excessive coverage of a book which attacked the private school system (written by someone who went to private school) The Guardian has suggested adding VAT to school fees.

Asides raising more money via tax i don't see how this would make the system fairer? From what I've seen the logic is that parents who are motivated to pay £20k+ on fees would force state schools to improve if their children attended them. Mumsnet is full of posters at their wits ends trying to affect change at their local state schools. No-one that I've met at our small private is wringing their hands that the local state schools are terrible and that this gives their children extra advantage.

Surely to improve educational equality either we all need to pay more tax to change class sizes or poorer students need better access to private education. In NZ private schools receive the same student allowance as state schools - wouldn't this be a better solution for students not able to access private education? For everyone to sit the entrance exam and then private schools to have to accept the student allowance as fees for those who can't afford it?

*There are ALREADY plenty of highly motivated parents with kids in the state system. Sending your kids to state school is not an indication that you don't care about their education.

And what can these highly motivated parents achieve by way of improving the state schools, exactly? What is the mechanism for doing this? There are threads here every day highlighting the powerlessness of parents in the state system.*

I wondered about this as well. It seems so patronising to claim that parents with children at private school have the ability and desire to improve state schools.

You still haven't answered why you're happy for the richest to use private schools but not those that require financial Assistance. And you won't.“

Actually, I don’t care about that. I just don’t want private schools to misuse charitable status. I want that money back in the exchequer where it belongs. If that means a few people are priced out of private education, so be it.

"but not those that require financial Assistance."

I've answered this.

The majority of financial assitance goes to the already affluent anyway.

Less than third receive financial help, and over half of this group pay more than half of the fees. The average bursary/ scholarship is £5k, but the average fee is £18k. Meaning that overall the charitable status does not benefit the poor, or those in need, mainly parents with more than one child at a school.

The argument about the less affluent is tosh.

"BTW the average Private school fee is £18,000 PA"

Don't just talk misinformed bollocks.

Actual facts, please.

www.isc.co.uk/media/4890/isc_census_2018_report.pdf

The key ones being:

~6% of secondary school, 4% of primary school, and 16% (!) of A level age at private school

33% ethnic minorities, a bit higher than state schools (31%)

14% foreign. 7% of the total have no parents in the UK

the average senior day school costs £14,586 per year, and the average senior boarding school is £33,000 per year

£9.1 billion in nominal fees, with £818 million in school-funded discounts/bursaries/scholarships, £123 million from various governent sources, and £29 million 'other'. 8% of students on means-tested scholarships/discounts

Also, the average SE & London day fee is much higher than other regions - £10,455 in the NW, and £17,082 in London.

"the average senior day school costs £14,586 per year, and the average senior boarding school is £33,000 per year"

The average over all is about £18k .

However, the averages you are quoting include primary schools. The secondary school average is about £18k.

If you are going to quote statistics its best to understand how they were arrived at.

"16% (!) of A level age at private school"

You a huge number of students who are in post 16 education are not studying A levels? This accounts for this figure

"Don't just talk misinformed bollocks."

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/27/average-private-school-fees-rise-above-17000-a-year-for-first-time.

Its nice however that your link proves my point about a only third of students getting funding students to be right.

I notice also that they very disingenuously display the percentage of students helped as "% of means tested pupils" not as a % of all pupils.

Oh and the eligible for assistance criteria ij some schools can go to households with incomes over £150k.

I thought that private schools are exempt from vat because they claim to be charities which is nonsense - they are bastions of privileged and as such should be charged vat. If some close as a result of parents not being able to pay the extra fees then tough.

" Nearly half of all pupils on means-tested bursaries have more than half of their fees remitted and 5,657 pay no fees at all. "

So my statistic that more than half of those on bursaries pay more than half the fees is accurate.

615,000 children in private schools, means that the 5657 children paying no fees at all, are accurately described by me as less than 1% of the entire total of students attending private school.

Please don't accuse me of uniformed bollocks. I'm right, and your links prove it.

"The average over all is about £18k .

However, the averages you are quoting include primary schools. The secondary school average is about £18k."

I provided you with the link.

You only had to click it.

The magic words:

'senior day school'

mean NOT primary schools

It IS possible to arrive at a figure of £18,000 by:

• excluding junior schools
• including boarding schools (and not just 'day boarding', but all boarding)

However this isn't particularly useful.

In terms of 'what does private school cost', it's reasonable to assume we are talking about a senior day school.

One point I missed was the numbers by region (day pupils only) with fees & population:

London 86,341 @ £17,082 (8.82 million)
SE 73,641 @ £15,162 (4.71 million)
South Central 59,027 @ £14,136 (5.05 million)
E 57,129 £14,067 (6.19 million)
NW 32,990 £10,455 (7.26 million)
WM 31,016 £11,589 (5.87 million)
SW 26,893 £12,267 (3.48 million)
Y&H 22,326 £11,445 (5.45 million)
Scot 21,955 £11,496 (5.37 million)
EM 20,501 £12,087 (5.10 million)
NE 6,901 £11,619 (2.31 million)
Wales 5,742 (3.10 million)

Their regions are a bit odd, but essentially SE is Kent, Surrey & Sussex, E is Essex, Cambs, Beds, Norfolk & Suffolk, SC is Hampshire, Oxon, Berks, Glos & Wilts.

Generally there are about twice as many private school kids in this area (and one suspects much more in Essex than say Norfolk) as in the rest of the country. They also have higher fees.

The SW is a bit anomalous in having relatively low fees and relatively high uptake of private schools.

If you consider the home counties regions in their stats + the SW, it comes to 303,031 private day pupils for 28.25 million people.

If you look at the rest of the country there are just 141,431 private day pupils for 34.46 million

To me what this shows is the massive amount of wealth around London, and the lack of it elsewhere.

It is also interesting to speculate to what extent private schools perpetuate and reinforce wealth, and to what extent they merely reflect it.

I believe for example in say N. Yorks, the private schools are pretty shit, and the state schools are quite good (because it's a rich area without social problems). Whereas in Surrey you could say the same about the state schools, but there are 100+ private schools, including some that are academically very elite.

So are people in N Yorks earning less money (probably, yes), and why do they not spend cash on private? Because there aren't appealing options? Or because they can't afford it?

Higher salaries and property prices certainly feed into education in the London/SE region.

I suspect the elite private schools are popular because they are elite, IYSWIM, but some attempt at addressing property prices and moving jobs away from London might address that.

It is not clear that taxing these schools would do much, given that the more financially elitist the schools are (and they are in London/SE), the more likely the parents are to be completely divorced from the financial realities that the rest of the population has to live with.

"Its nice however that your link proves my point about a only third of students getting funding students to be right. "

I wasn't attempting to disagree with your points, I was just observing that if they aren't backed with accurate info they don't really have any value.

Just scrap them all. Their only purpose is to entrench privilege.

But if that can't happen then yes they should be taxed same as any other purchase.

But my points are valid.

The charitable status of schools is because of the help they provide, but its very low, and often to those from affluence anyway.

The average, is about £18k. Sorry

We also used the average amount of support which is £5k.

'I thought that private schools are exempt from vat because they claim to be charities"

This isn't quite right

a) they don't 'claim' to be charities - that is the legal status of many (but not all) private schools
b) fees are VAT-free because of the EU regulations on what VAT applies to. It is nothing whatsoever to do with charitable status. There isn't VAT on fees at schools which are not charities
c) only certain aspects of a school's transaction are qualify for VAT relief because of charitable status. This is worth about £200 per pupil per term (less than the variation in fee level between schools)
d) if there was a means to relinquish charitable status without closing (the only legal way to end a charity as the law stands) schools would probably queue up to take it.

"I thought that private schools are exempt from vat because they claim to be charities which is nonsense - they are bastions of privileged and as such should be charged vat. If some close as a result of parents not being able to pay the extra fees then tough."

No, this is not correct.

Under EU law you are not allowed to charge VAT on education

ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/eu-vat-rules-topic/exemptions_en

The question of whether they are providing a VATable service (they are not, and this isn't debatable), is quite separate from the issue of charitable status.

As a charity what schools do get is various tax exemptions etc.

• no tax on profits - not particularly a big deal as they generally will not make profit, as they spend their fee income on educational activities/salaries. No dividends are being paid!
• 80% off business rates - this appears to be worth around £110 million a year across the sector www.thirdsector.co.uk/private-schools-will-save-522m-business-rates-tax-relief-next-five-years/finance/article/1436191 which is roughly £220 per pupil albeit that this does not fall equally
• gift Aid claimable on donations, but not on school fees - probably not that significant in most cases

It is suggested here that the total value of private schools' tax exemptions is around £250 million per year.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/private-schools-catering-to-the-global-elite-are-spending-lavishly-because-of-their-huge-uk-tax-a7022246.html

This is around 2.5% of revenues, so not hugely significant, but something no doubt.

It is difficult to unwind charitable status, as it has been in law since 1601 and ownership structures are all quite difficult to change. I suspect that most of the stuff about bursaries etc. being charitable is a bit dodgy - schools that might for example subsidise a few parents are not necessarily doing it for altruistic reasons but to improve their results keep their numbers up etc.

There is some real charitable value in terms of private schools providing facilities to others. What the financial value of that is I do not know, save to say that if you said 'no private school is a charity', and they withdrew from such activities and acted 100% for the elite, then it would not really seem to serve any purpose.

I would say that 90% of students at dd's school receive assistance, whether through a government grant or a school bursary (bursaries available up to 50% and governemnt funding up to 100% depending on family income).

The school does outreach programmes too where they go into local schools (or invite them in) to identify potential pupils)

“I would say that 90% of students at dd's school receive assistance,”

The fact that I can almost certainly name this very specialist School suggests that it is, if not unique, at least one of a very few.

More than happy to pay the VAT on the fees if I can claim back the amount I save the government by not putting my child in the state system. (Started off there, highly motivated parents, got super involved and like our other parent friends on the PTA committee realised we were pissing in the wind and utterly powerless. It’s all very well imagining some liberal dream that all of us pulling together will solve problems in a school. The reality we found was very very different. Went private, never looked back.)

Ok so what’s the percentage of children at your school who have free school meals, pupil premium or SEN.

“More than happy to pay the VAT on the fees if I can claim back the amount I save the government by not putting my child in the state system.“

Great. I have two adult children who used the NHS about 10 times in total. Can I have what i’ve contributed to the NHS back please? My friend has no children- she must be due a massive refund. Oh, and I have never needed to call on the Emergency Services or claim benefit. I’m going to be rolling in it.

And obviously you’ll make sure you don’t benefit in any way from anyone state educated’s skills or services.

Was that to me Maldives?

Free school meals are not applicable & they don’t get PP but there are some who were eligible in their previous school (all meals are provided for everyone in years 7-11.)

SEN figures not published. But would include my Dd.

The VAT issue is a bit of a red herring.

Firstly, VAT is an EU tax and we don't currently know what will replace it if and when we leave. It may stay exactly the same, but governments could change it.

Secondly, because most (not all) independent schools are charities they are obviously VAT exempt. However, this means they can't reclaim VAT on purchases they make in the way that a business can. They therefore pay a lot of VAT, even though they don't charge VAT on fees.

Thirdly, independent schools reinvest everything they earn into the schools themselves - salaries, updating infrastructure etc. They are essentially non-profit making. As such, even if they didn't have charitable status, they would not pay much tax.

Fourthly, as a society we need to decide whether or not we think investment in educational activities is a good thing. Broadly I think we do (issues over inequality aside). At the moment the supply of educational services, medical treatment and other things that are generally deemed to be a social good can be VAT exempt. The ramifications of changing that would be pretty big.

I therefore see no point in charing VAT on school fees.

Thus is all just asinine rubbish. The problems of the state sector are not caused or contributed to by private schools. The plight of the huge numbers of children failed by that sector will be improved not a jot if you closed every private school tomorrow. The willingness of people to believe the contrary on no evidence whatsoever demonstrates how people are driven by prejudice not fact.

I concur with race cars earlier post s on not allowing the state a monopoly on education....

Very good point.

YY Donald, again excellent point... I've never understood this sort of argument on here.

And how on earth can invested parents reach into troubled blighted homes and make sure those DC go into work!!

State schools need better funding. It makes sense to raise it from private schools.
Get rid of their charitable status unless more than 50% of their pupils are on full scholarships.