Private Schools being able to hold charitable status

[IdiotCreatures]

I went and looked at a building associated with a local independent school yesterday, as it's always piqued my curiosity.
The school is run by the Woodard Corporation. I looked at their books on company house yesterday.
The amount of money moving through them is ridiculous. If people want to pay for a private education, then surely the institutions should be taxed.
Apart from a small number of scholarships, the average person is not benefiting from these institutions.
In the case of Eton, as pointed out on another thread, these schools are probably leading to damage to society and definitely do not promote the idea of equality.

@Dogtooth

I couldn't disagree more.
Our local comp is quite good but is not doing right by its Sen pupil's. I know a few mums who have got on governess board/lobbied/ complain and it's all fallen on deaf ears. The SLT are known for being totally arrogant and blinkered?

What else are parents supposed to do for goodness sake?

Antelope valley, my DC doesn't have prevelant enough Sen to warrant being sent to a Sen school.

However she has enough to know she won't be educated properly at our local comp which is known for letting down Sen pupil's ( leafy).

Having a special Sen school would also lead to far more stigma than the grammar system ever did.

scholarships and bursaries add up. If a school is making less than 200k "profit" a year and they have to use half of that to cover the fees of scholarship and bursaries there will be v v little left to invest in keeping up the facilities, staffing levels etc. Again, whilst some schools have v wealthy endowments, ancient benefactors, assets etc, the vast majority really don't and have been hit hard in the last two years by Covid causing a drop in international boarders. As a pp said, if the aim in abolishing private schools was to somehow use it to massively improve and diversify the state sector that would be great. If its ideological "smash the rich" just to bring everyone down to the same poorly funded and over used state level then no.

This makes no sense. On the one hand you are saying the schools should raise funds by direct donation - and in the next breath condemn them for doing it. which is it to be?

To all the fee paying parents who have apparently sent their children private and sacrificed their children's state school place for the good of the rest of society and are apparently paying tax twice 🤣 OP you are not unreasonable at all!

There is absolutely no ethical justification for private schools to hold charitable status. But then I find private schools deplorable and elitist anyway.

No one is saying abolish private schools. I'm saying, make fees taxable just like any other luxury.

By the age of 30 a private school educated person earns 22% more than state school educated people.

That's what most parents are buying. A service that advantages their kids. That service should be taxed, just like any other service.

And yes I think the £1.22bn that a 15% tax would get should be put into the state sector.

My son was at a Woodard school and they did plenty to help the community. The local schools were always using their sport and drama facilities and they weekly opened their doors to cubs, scouts, a cinema club and gymnastics to name but a few. Just because you don’t know what they do doesn’t mean that they don’t do anything charitable.

Loads of people say they should be abolished. If you slapped 15% on the fees, lots of parents would simply have to withdraw their kids and put them in the state sector.. regardless of as already overstretched capacity. Some schools would close entirely and those teachers may or may not choose to apply in the state sector but the schools can't afford to employ more anyway. Typical example upthread there of the donation to Eton cited as evidence as though it's typical when it is categorically not. My school does blatantly and unashamedly fundraise because we have to to fund capital projects.

Again, education is not a luxury. In a free society if people wish to make arrangements to educate their children outside the state sector they should be permitted to do so provided the alternative provision is of good quality.

I don't really care about the charitable status question itself - not sure why I posted. Charitable status is gone in Scotland, I'm there and it's fine:

But in general of course there is no data for percentage SN in private - you can't even get clear data for this in the state sector let alone any accountability whatsoever.

I don't quite understand how more children with SN coping in private schools being forced back into the state sector is desirable for anyone, regardless of the percentage or parental income.

My point really is that parents of kids with ASN need more options not fewer and it benefits state school kids for my DC not to be hogging a larger share of resource than the average pupil to fail in a state school.

Scotland has already brought in reforms away from private schools having charitable status. Does anyone know how that has impacted more widely?

Probably too early to say - I hear significant few rises across the patch this year, the first ones post pandemic. Not 15 percent though.

From looking at a few school websites (Gordonstoun, glenalmond, dollar academy) they are still describing themselves as charities ….

It's disgusting.

@TullyApplebottom I totally agree. I don't want to take away anyone's freedom! I just think private education should be taxed like any other service. Why shouldn't it?

We tax goods & services. If you choose to send children to a fee paying school you should pay tax on those fees just like any other service.

I don't see why you wouldn't

We don’t tax all services. Lots aren’t subject to VAT. If education is to be subject to VAT that will hit lots of people other than those paying for private schools as others have pointed out.

I’m really intrigued as to how exactly the standards will miraculously go up in my local state school if I take my kids out of private?

I think it’s more likely that instead of 30 in a class, it’ll be 35-40 kids. Instead of 5 maths sets, there will be 6 or 7 with many of those children pushed down a set. I’ll also buy a house next to the school and drop £200 quid a month on maths lessons to make sure my kid is in the top set and working towards an 8/9.

A private school recently closed in my area and the local council could not accommodate them. They ended up to an hour away. My town has exploded in population and instead of expanding the secondary, the narrowed the caption area. I was in it, then got my 4th choice of school, a failing one, so said screw this, my DC is staying in private. They had the option to buy an existing school, with masses of land and a pool and they didn’t, they sold it to a housing development.

I’m agog at the naivety. Tax private school and/ or remove charitable status? It would make the state system worse, not better.

If you support equality of opportunity then presumably you would like to see state schools banned.

OP you are right it is ridiculous.

Lots if illogical responses about how state system couldn’t cope with overnight changes which isn’t what you suggested. Or how private school parents should get tax breaks for the state place they didn’t use. Tax and the social contract don’t work like that.

Yes we should gradually withdraw the use of charitable status for private schools. The private school sector has been enhancing its elitism so it can bring in more money from overseas. Burseries etc and other activities which might be seen as charity related are not top priority. So they shouldn’t get the status. Or the tax breaks.

This.

My kids go to an independent school and saving the government money wasn’t part of the decision making process. But that doesn’t change the fact that each privately educated child saves the taxpayer around £7000 per year.

If even 10% of children left independent school, the taxpayer would have to find an extra £42,000,000 to fund their education. I would bet that a significant increase in fees in the current climate would price out more that 10%.

That would mean more competition for school places in areas of high demand and even bigger class sizes. It seems to be unpalatable to many, but like it or not state education is already subsidised by the private sector.

If there were no private schools, politicians and their wealthy donors would have to send their children to state schools. Therefore state schools would improve.

Rich people hold all the power in this country. Private schools perpetuate that.

If private schools don't buy an unfair advantage why does anyone use them?

Additionally, it's not that easy to remove charitable status. Broadly, charity assets can't be used for non-charitable purposes so it would create a fair bit of legal confusion. There would be a potential risk to other organisations like Universities if it was held that the provision of education for a fee was not charitable.

I suspect the cost of removing charitable status would mean that nowhere near as much money was raised as expected. eg if the schools can reclaim VAT as well as having to pay it the amount raised is reduced and if higher fees push some people into the state sector then that has a cost implication.

It's remarkable how touchy private school parents are about the fact that others might think they're .. selfish people.

And hilarious that someone has used the word 'diversity' in the context of their choice to buy their kids an unfair advantage.

Of course having the school that suits the child is important. It couldn't be more important. But it's important for every child, not just the middle class ones. The funnelling off of some children has a profound impact on the country as a whole - and not just because the sharp-elbowed remove their attention from the state education system, which would improve with their democratic pressure: here is barely a single aspect of our society which the funnelling off doesn't infect. It props up inequality. It maintains inequality. It is, in fact, inequality. That's what you're buying - inequality.

This is not an act without consquence for others - like choosing Heinz baked beans instead of Sainsburys, because you can afford it and why shouldn't you - and you're all despicably disingenuous in pretending it is. The existence of private education damages all the children left behind, and the adults they go on to become. It damages us all. Except for you, private school parent, and your lovely offspring who were lucky enough to have parents who could afford the fees - - through your own bloody hard work, no doubt, and nothing to do with the class privilege you inherited.

Lots of state schools are designated SEN. They take state pupils from mainstream and support their disabilities.
So why should the private ones have charitable status?