Private school fees - act now for SEND!

[BellesAndGraces]

The King’s Speech is scheduled for this Wednesday (17th July) and it will be followed by 4 days of debating Labour’s proposed legislation in Parliament, including the introduction of VAT on private school fees.

If you have a child with special educational needs or a disability and send them to a private school because your local state school was unable to meet their needs but do not have an EHCP I would strongly suggest that you write to your MP and tell them why you send your child to a private school and how the charging of VAT on private school fees will affect you. Ask your MP to stand up in Parliament and ask the government whether it is willing to expand the exception they have agreed to make for children with EHCPs to cover all children who attend private school in order to meet their SEND. If you share your story and circumstances with your MP you will be providing them with a case study they can refer to in Parliament about how charging VAT on private school fees will affect those of their constituents who are already dealing with the challenges that having a child with SEND can bring.

You can find out who your MP is and their email address here: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

Private schools don’t tend to use QTS teachers either. Yet most still manage to deliver.

Isn’t a large reason children with EHCPs will be exempt from tax is to save LAs money as there are many LA funded children in independent schools.

How would it be determined without an EHCP that a child meets the criteria for exemption? If it’s a case of a school putting a children in the SEN register that could be open to abuse.

@User6874356 because luxuries are subject to VAT and people have to pay tax on luxury items. No one is banning people from attending these schools the government is just effectively removing an exemption. And those with serious SEN can and should get an ECHP so won’t be subject to the full fees anyway.

Let's examine that statement: "those with serious SEN should get an EHCP".

Yes. It would take about two years (assuming the waits don't get longer which they probably will).

So are parents being allowed a two year grace period? No.

you’re attacking op for caring about some
disabled children. It doesn’t matter if some SEN parents disagree and think they should pay more tax for the privilege of paying for a suitable education for their child (who are these people???). They can pay extra tax if they want. The purpose of ops thread is to help some SEN kids which is laudable. Why would anyone be opposed even if they were not in the group being helped?

I agree. It doesn't have to be state school kids vs private children. They are all children whose parents are trying to provide the best they can for them. Bitter sums it up. My niece goes to a fantastic all girls private secondary. We can't afford that for my DD and occasionally I am a bit jealous, but how would making it unaffordable for her parents benefit me. It wouldn't. I want her to do well.

That is simply untrue. It can be a long battle to get an EHCP.

There are some children with SEN whose parents have got them into the private system and now they are doing OK. The difficulties have been to some extent resolves, but now the govt are going to introduce VAT meaning some of those children lose their solution. That doesn't benefit them and it doesn't benefit anyone's children who haven't used private either.

Education isn’t a luxury. It especially isn’t a luxury if it’s simply paying for the education the state should be providing but won’t. Punishing disabled kids because you’re jealous of their parents is really low

getting an EHCP is a very long and difficult process. You’re being ridiculously naive.

VAT is not a "tax on luxury items". It is a tax on "value added" meaning value added at each stage of the production or consumption of the good or service.

I suppose the thing with education is the value added is rather subjective unlike e.g. a block of cheese (zero rated as deemed to be a necessity).

As it's a percentage tax, it does of course fall more heavily on expensive things.

Absolutely. Taxing parents who have been forced to pay for a suitable education for disabled kids doesn’t benefit those who can’t afford to pay (in fact it will likely disadvantage them by putting further strain on resources). It’s just the politics of envy

@Phineyj they first announced this before September 2023 and I think there should be some kind of transition period in the legislation, so it probably would be close to 2 years by the end of it, if not more. The writing has been on the wall for a long time- certainly long enough for plenty of private schools to have taken extensive advice on ways around it all (like paying everything now!).

Timescales for an ehcp are written in law and should be no more than 20 weeks from application. One of mine went to tribunal and still wasn’t 2 years from start of application. Some do go on for 2 years usually because the child has significant need and will be very expensive) but it is the exception.

I have personal experience of this and it really isn’t the exception. Either that or my LA is worse than the average.

Sounds like you are only supportive of children in private schools receiving the appropriate support - what about all children receiving support

@Longhotsummers LAs also spend a lot of time and money fighting parents in court to deny EHCPs and persecuting them for not being able to get their kids suffering EBSA to school - many of whom are ASD and have unmet needs contributing to the EBSA and are unsupported by CAMHS. No government is brave enough to face this vast interconnected issue and talk ab out how they'll fix that. Much easier to do this as a crowd pleaser even though it will be ineffective at achiveing anything positive.

Apparantly, the VAT fees won’t come into being for about 4 years, so many children won’t be affected.

Supporting some children doesn’t mean you don’t support all. It’s a particular issue which affects some people- supporting it doesn’t mean you don’t support other complementary issues

hope that helps

This.

I have emailed local councillors, MPs and the useless local education department tirelessly trying to bump SEN provision up the agenda, both before and after deciding to extract my child to private school to protect their mental health. People are perfectly capable of thinking beyond just their child you know.

This can’t possibly be true! Do you have figures?

I thought Labour said they wouldn’t implement VAT in the cases of children with SEN? I think they’re aware they can’t increase SEN funding so have made an exemption if anything to lower pressure on the system. At the bottom of the article is the Labour position

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/13/record-number-of-pupils-have-special-needs-support-plan-in-englandand

I support all children receiving support - not just those in a private school. Children in state schools need the funding as many are receiving zero support

That's really increasingly untrue. I've been in the private sector now for over 20 years and a vanishingly small % of my colleagues are not QTS and any that aren't are v young and working toward it.

Please can you relink? AFAIAW, they have only proposed an exemption for those children with EHCPs so it would be good to read what you have posted.