To think good school places will be even harder to find next year because of the VAT on school fees

[Nesca1]

We are are looking at secondary schools for DS. We have our eye on a decent school bang in the middle of a solid middle class area . The school is always over subscribed; this year we would have gotten a place but last year we would have missed out because of how far we are from the school.
Usually, the school offers places to children living 1600m away, last year it was 1400m due to a large number of sibling applications.

Due to the whole VAT issue, i think more parents from the local area are going to be sending their kids to this school, rather than sending them to private schools.

Is this a reasonable assumption? I don't think parents will wait for the policy to be enacted, but they will move their year 6 children into this school.

Not everyone has access to a good state school.

It is a tax advantage. Private schools are vat exempt. It is that tax advantage that Labour are going to be abolished.

And?

Even if ex private school kids do take grammar school places, they will be taking them in the main from other kids in exactly the same demographic!

Do you think you've really understood the economics here? As @Iagrewithhim said: "It's not much of a tax advantage to be paying for education via your taxes without actually using it... then paying mega bucks for education on top of it."

Actually there should be a tax advantage since education is a positive externality.

Currently there's a very large tax disadvantage, if we take the time to consider the whole puzzle rather than just the anti-education rhetoric. State schools don't grow on trees. Every private school place pays tax that covers the VAT exemption by 3-10 times.

The VAT exemption is worth ~£2.5k per pupil.

• The saving on state education is worth ~£7.5k per pupil so 3x
• There's also a further £3k per pupil in Department overhead which nobody talks about, so make that 4x
• Then there's the taxes paid by the schools on employment and via suppliers, worth about £4k per pupil more than in the state sector (for example, another thing nobody talks about is that private schools pay VAT on purchases and capex but state schools don't), so it's 5.5x
• And if we include the taxes paid when the fees get earned, in contrast to receiving school for free paid by taxpayers, it goes up to 10x, conservatively

is that good or bad?

Where I live they lower the threshold for "deprived children" and they could do that in all areas if they are so bothered. It might make it harder for those that aren't but that assumes that the children at private school are so much more academic which I doubt.

You are woefully misinformed on pretty much every point you attempt to make.

It's neutral to the argument about deprived DC missing out of course.

What difference has that made to the intake? Is there intake significantly closer to the norm than is the case for grammar schools as a whole? I'm interested to see if these schemes actually work or whether they're window dressing.

I am laughing at all these rich people who are aghast that they might have to pay more for private school, pretending to care about deprived children.

Ours have now left private but I our school put out letters re mitigation measures whilst they were still there.
You may find your school has dealt with ways to prevent huge fee increases without affecting you too much.
Many schools have.
Ours, for example, will be charging for the use of all facilities which were previously free to local people and local schools ie the sports fields and sports centre, photography labs and theatre etc
They will be stopping free revision classes to all but their own pupils…previously available for free
They will be stopping the ‘hands’ volunteering. ie teachers and 6th formers helping out with reading and sports at local primaries.
They will be charging tourists to walk around the site…..its very important religious and English historical complex.
As many of the buildings are ‘protected’ they will not be footing the full bill for maintenance anymore by reclaiming money ( no idea how that works )
They have warned the number and % reduction of bursaries and exhibitions may have to be reduced but not to current pupils.

You may, therefore find when you receive your letter the school doesn’t have to raise fees as much as you may think.

We should be ensuring that all schools are good. Is it fair that some people live in areas with great state schools and others don’t, when we are contributing through the same tax system? Improve state schools and people will choose them over private. Why should those in areas with no good state schools be penalised through the VAT system? We need to work from the bottom up, not the top down. Taxing private school fees will do nothing to improve the state system. Even the IFS optimistic/flawed calculations estimates show that the tax take from the VAT will only be around 1% of the state education budget.

It has made a difference in some areas e.g. Birmingham. It depends on the policy.

Yes, they must think people are really stupid.

Have you got data you can share?

I'm not being goady, I'm interested in admissions reform in all its guises.

"Where I live they lower the threshold for "deprived children""

This "lowering the threshold" takes many forms. In my area, for example, it means that if you are identified as from a disadvantaged background and pass the exam, you automatically get a place, regardless of any other criteria. But you still have to hit the same passmark. Which is more challenging for such kids.

@Another76543 I agree all state schools should be good. That is why I will be voting Labour.
Conservatives have been systematically trying to destroy state education.

It’s more that it’s a very poor policy appealing for reasons that are clear - if I can’t have it they can’t etc

It’s poor for all the reasons in pp

Not at all. It is about fairness in tax,

Despite all the hyperbole I think virtually all private school pupils will carry on attending private school.

Again you totally miss the point.

People are discussing likely consequences to show how nonsensical the proposed policy is.

People who smoke may point to the tax revenue their habit creates and how that benefits the NHS. None of them claim the reason they smoke is to support the NHS but it is something that should be considered when assessing tobacco tax rates or smoking bans.

Yes, some of those measures have already been floated in the past by our school at the last GE. It would be a real shame in many cases. We have great sports fields and those are used by local schools that don't have any. Our theatre and swimming pool is used likewise. I assume bursaries will largely go. We also have a number of Ukrainian refugee kids who are fully funded for school and boarding.. I assume that will stay but unlikely that any similar programme would be extended. We also have some students who do particular lessons at our school (Latin) because theirs do not offer it and this is seen as part of the community outreach programme.

Never mind that it is suggested by many sources that actually tax take would go down as schools are then able to reclaim on things that could not before, it seems a crying shame that some really good programmes might end.

And private school fees have been rising significantly every year. If you really can not afford the extra vat cost, you were likely to have to leave the private sector in the next year or two anyway.

I don’t think virtually all will, no.

And fairness in tax is what pretty much all others countries do, who do not use extra tax on education for votes

Sorry just found the King Edward VI data - it does seem to have made a huge deviation from the norm. I wish other grammars would follow (and tbh wish more comps would introduce banded admissions.)