To not see how the gov will make any money from taxing private schools?

[AngryHedgehog]

All the other threads seem to have descended into bunfighting over the ethics of the policy, yet I'm not really understanding how this stands to benefit the government as surely they'll be footing the bill for all the kids that move to state schools?

As a disclaimer, I don't have kids and wouldn't be able to afford to privately educate them even if I did, despite earning a half decent salary.

I'm reading that it costs around £7k per pupil per term, so it would take the VAT from around four families to fund each additional child moving to state education.

Given that this may be 4/10 kids in private education moving to state schooling, I don't see how this doesn't create a net loss as there will only be 50% more kids left in private education and there needs to be multiple times that for the VAT increase to foot the bill.

Surely I'm missing something here?

What was it you said previously - "thems the breaks"?

No-one paying school fees is denying they are better off than those on the breadline. You seem to be missing the point that there comes a tipping point where many will decide that the item they have chosen to fund (and is also available without the additional expense as you pointed out) is no longer value for money.

So you and others can shout from the rooftops that private schools 'should' modify their ratios or private school parents 'should' tighten their belts but, in reality, that extra income that would have been spent on school fees buys choices. And many of them will choose to use the free option by buying into catchment, taking up places in better performing schools and reduce their working hours (and therefore reducing income tax) therefore costing the government significantly more. Which leads back to the OP of the government not actually making any money from the policy. It does beg the question, what is the point? It is going to have zero impact on the very wealthy and they are the ones that buy contacts and go onto the high powered jobs. If we don't change that, what are we achieving?

That is fine if some parents who currently send their children to private school decide it is not worth making sacrifices to continue doing so. They can send their children to state school.

afairyv · Today 09:58
It's also interesting because a lot of parents at our school are very left/ liberal and sent the kids to independent because the schools in their village and towns are very very right wing, very white and don't support their ideas on gender policy

That’s a new one! I’ve never heard of parents sending their children private because the state school parents are too white and right wing.
Ironic…

The top 10% earn, on average, £66k a year. That gives take home pay of around £48k. £4.5k just in extra VAT is a large amount of money even by those standards. There are junior doctors on that type of salary who are striking over their pay levels. Should we tell them to “adapt”?

Regardless of this, taxing school fees is going to raise minimal, if any, money. This policy is not going to help the lower paid. It would be a more logical policy if it did.

To raise any meaningful amount of money will need greater taxation of more of the general population. There are multi millionaires using the state education system. It makes more sense, and would likely raise more money, if we increase their tax.

From a selfish perspective, it is absolutely fine. We committed to primary private education because the comprehensive wraparound care allows me to work FT and progress my career. Our state primaries did not offer this and being reliant on childminder was too risky. Private secondary was always up for debate due to the eye watering fees.

The VAT threat confirmed our decision to move into catchment of a good state secondary and we did this a year earlier than originally planned. By the time our eldest goes to secondary, I will have been able to work full time at consultant level for 7 years more than I otherwise would have if the children went to state primary so when I step down to part time, I can do so without worrying about impact to my career. Financially, we will benefit if the policy does go into place as our new house will soar in value by the time our youngest finishes secondary. The state school our children will go to has excellent facilities and retains staff because standards are high and behaviour is good. FSM is well below national average. As a result, competition for places is high.

As I have said on other threads, we are one of many families who have already taken this approach. The secondary we plan to send our children to has had record numbers of applications this year for their selective intake. Once VAT is implemented, more and more will switch at the next natural transition point.

If so many move out of the sector, there is no VAT being paid. Those not paying school fees will be putting additional income into pension/dropping hours/paying for holidays. All of which result in net loss to the government.

If the policy makes no money/loses money, who are the winners and who are the losers? Whilst those who have switched to state are not the winners, they are also not the ones with the most to lose.

The number of private school pupils has already dropped. It is being blamed on covid and the large rises in school fees.
State education has not collapsed as a result.

"In 2019/20, there were 576,857 students at private schools but the most recent figures for 2020/21, published by the Department for Education (DfE), show this has decreased to 569,366."

Who has suggested state education will collapse?
You seem to want to deliberately miss the point 🙄

The point being people will pay more their private education.

@Barbadossunset we live in the south so the surrounding towns are not quite Nigel Farage Clacton but not that far off in some areas tbh and the children at our school are a lot more diverse than a lot of the local state schools so it's not that much of a reach

I think this depends on where you live.

I believe the most academic schools for girls in London has a minority of white ethnic background (less than 20% are of white ethnicity at north london collegiate for example). I would assume that boys (Westminster and St Paul’s ) are similar.

Given that private schools have increased their fees by 20% in real terms since 2010 with no decrease in student numbers, I'm just astonished that there's no expectation they cut their costs to accommodate the impact of VAT.

Maybe. But with the increased cost of living and schools tightening their expenses maybe they will decide that private schools aren’t worth it with the VAT?

and send their children to state schools (maybe by / rent somewhere in superior catchment) and spend money on tutoring?

and go part time to spend more time with family / help children with school work?

> the advantage for those children will remain
> the children will now be eligible for contextual offers from universities
> there will be additional children for the underfunded state school to sort out
> less tax intake as parents work less.
> smaller private schools (especially less academic, maybe with children lacking an official SEN diagnosis ) will close - and put additional pressure on state schools.

i am not sure how this helps anyone, but….people seem to enjoy the concept of it so why not?

One of the reasons I sent my DC to private school is because it was (and is) far more ethnically and religiously diverse than my local state primary. I grew up and went to school in a 99.9% white working class area and after moving to London as a young adult decided that I wanted a more diverse school environment for my DC. However, as we left London and moved to a rural area the local state options didn’t offer that. One of the teachers at my DC’s school has an adopted daughter who is a different race to her and her DH. She told me that the school’s diversity was her reason for choosing it. So it’s not as unusual as you may think.

@HooverIsAlwaysBroken you do not understand contextual offers. You do not get them just because your child goes to a state school.
I am fine if private pupils now go to a state school. It is the parents choice.

I thought you got a contextual offer based on the average performance of the school? So if the average was not that great, and a heavily tutored child ($$$) outside of school had an outstanding grade compared to classmates, that would help? Happy to be corrected.

I am also happy for anyone who wants to put their child in any type of school. The thread is discussing of this really will bring in all the money it is alleged to. I believe not.

a general policy change with the aim to finish off the private sector with the exclusion of Eton is a different discussion.

a general policy change with the aim to finish off the private sector with the exclusion of Eton is a different discussion.

Yes, and I always thought Eton was the one school Labour loathed as to them it summed up all that they hate about private education. However Eton will be pretty much unscathed by VAT on fees.
(Though Shami Chakrabarti’s son sat the entrance exam so she can’t have hated it that much).

Just out of interest - how many poor, low or middle achieving children are there at your children's private primary school?

Because as far as I can see, that cohort (which made up a fairly hefty proportion of the children at my kid's primary school, where 45% of the children were on free school meals) is pretty much entirely missing from the entire private school sector, including all those private schools that are actually educational charities.

A school can't be considered diverse if it's part of an educational sector where an entire and large pupil cohort is completely missing.

They're clearly talking about religious and ethnic diversity - as they state. For some people that is, understandably, a huge factor.

So not really diversity then? Just like all these DEI initiatives that ignore disability.

There are different forms of diversity. My 99% white working class primary and comp weren’t diverse at all. I didn’t have one person who wasn’t white in my class during 14 years of education. And if you’re looking at it purely in terms of income, then there’s a far wider range at my DC’s private primary. Of course no one is on free school meals (but that’s a very low threshold in any event and I was one of very few free school meals kids at my state school). Pretty much everyone’s parent had a job but very few parents had a high income.

There are plenty of DC with SEN at my DC’s private primary and at the senior school to which it’s attached. It’s not a super academic school. There are many private schools that are not selective at all and have a significant number of pupils with SEN.

You don't consider race and ethnicity to be diversity factors? At the state school my daughter went to there were no non-white children in the whole school. Diversity comes in many forms but to deny face and ethnicity as factors is pretty shocking.

And FYI, my company has a huge dei focus on diverse ability.

If you just focus on race and ethnicity then you are no more diverse than a 100% white working class school.

That is somewhat debatable because "class" (socio economic background) is a sliding scale. But even if you ignore that, you're also no less diverse - and who is to say which form of diversity is "better".

And just to add, if they are 100% white and 100% working class, they do actually have less diversity than a school which actually has race and ethnic diversity.