Council spends £8000pa on a taxi due to VAT on private schools

[Iwishicouldflyhigh]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14403627/Labours-VAT-raid-teenage-girl-private-school-council-fund-8-000-taxi-bill.html

So now a place is being taken up in an overscribed school, a 15 year old has had her eduction severely disrupted and the local council has 8k less in the pot.

Well done Labour!!! One of many stories, i'm sure and so predictable.

Read. The. Thread.

At no point did they appear to ask the council for a closer school place.

Home to school transport is provided based on each LA’s policy and this family only won after appeal. That appeal could have been successful for a number of reasons, and not because the school place was the closest one with spaces.

It wasn’t known about for ages. Before winning the election Labour said - or at least signed - they would implement the VAT in September 2025. Doing it mid-year was indescribably spiteful.

Nail on the head. Councils will try to "bully" people wherever they can, whether it's schools, school transport, planning applications, pot hole car damage, even reporting abandoned vehicles. They'll do everything they can to avoid having to do some work or fund a legitimate claim, and an initial rejection to the first application/approach is pretty much standard practice.

Wrong. This was a deeply spiteful tax. And no my kids aren’t in private school. Fascinating to see people refer to the Daily Wail. While wailing.

Wailing about what? Those of us that referred to it as the Daily Wail didn’t start this ridiculous thread.

I'm glad the Council have to pay for a taxi to take the child to and from school. I hope the family get all the support that they are legally entitled to.

These are the unintended consequences of a poorly thought out, vindictively implemented policy.

Ha.

I think they gave an interview to the Sunday Telegraph (not the DM) and said this was the only school and indeed it said it had no places, but the child on its waiting list and they were lucky within a week or two a place did come up. The council has to transport the child. Lots of people live in places without much public transport particularly those very good people who have used private schools saving tax payers a small fortunate and enabling more of the poor to be helped.

Labour has chosen to bite the hand that feeds and will have to live with the consequences. 20% of children in London go to fee paying school and the extra about £10k a year new tax (2 children day school) that it has chosen to impose often on parents who already have lots 30 free hours, the personal tax allowance, have 9% or even 15% student loan tax charge and no child benefit is particularly pernicious. However hopefully the litigation will be won.

The parents don’t actually have to ask for a place in a named school. They might have already been told the nearer schools were full. If the parents won because transport costs were legally payable, they won. If the school they got had spaces, it had spaces! Inevitably others did not.

In my LA only 1 secondary has spaces in all years. All the grammars here (13) have no spaces in any years. Schools cannot expand on the whim of parents responding to taxation as it’s unquantifiable. No school is able to hold places open if dc want them and neither can they refuse a dc if they have space. All schools want to be full to maximise income.

As for people saying that schools should just magically have places for all shows very little understanding of school planning. Just to be clear, school planning takes years and includes sophisticated forecasts of population growth or reduction, new housing is taken into account and the birth rate. What is hugely difficult, with little advance warning, is who may or may not leave a private school mid way through a phase of education. It could be very few, based on previous years, or loads as we see now due to a vindictive government. Also a LA must offer a school place but cannot plan for unknown financial decisions made by parents. It’s very likely they cannot magic up multiple places with no warning. It’s an unplanned cock up.

I’m interested as to why Lincolnshire rejected the application twice for transport costs ?

@OhCrumbsWhereNow "Burnoutforever
Children have to move schools all the time for all sorts of reasons . If you’re relying on the state to pay a huge amount for transport and there’s a closer place you either pay the transport costs yourself and stay at the school or accept the offer of a nearer one .

Except that legally you don't. Ah well"

Except legally you do-if there's a nearer school with places.

The PP was saying that if you have accepted a place - and are having your transport paid for - and then 6 weeks, 6 months, 3 years or whatever down the line a place becomes vacant at a closer school then you should be forced to move the child there (even if it's weeks before GCSE exams).

Legally you cannot be forced to move your child to a closer school because a place suddenly becomes available after they have started at the further away school.

So legally the child will retain their paid for transport while they are at the school - even if 100 places become available closer to the child's home.

They couldn't afford a 3k rise in costs and yet the mum could afford to give up her job 🤔

So many holes in this story. Also they haven't contacted the LA for comment it seems? Or else the quote they were given didn't feed the narrative. Funny that.

At no point has it been said anywhere that the council offered a place at a closer school. Therefore she is entitled to transport by law not council policy. The only reason the appeal was successful was because it was the closest school that offered a place and it was more than three miles away.

It doesn’t matter if the council could have persuaded a sink school closer to take her, they didn’t. The onus is on the council to offer places not on the parent to apply to schools that say they are full on the off chance a space comes up.

Erm, yes it does. They would have to provide the home tutor or education support package. Home education does not mean a parent teaching their child in the vast majority of cases unless the parent wants to and can show that they can maintain the standard. Which is difficult for a secondary age student and also when a parent works. Who do you think pays for home education?

Yes I’d be interested as to why Lincolnshire twice rejected the application for transport costs ?

It’s usually very simple as either you meet the criteria or you don’t ? LA know this they will not just reject a legitimate application? Has there not been a statement from the LA?

My guess is that because at no point did they involve the LA in trying to find her a school place or flag up that there was nothing closer, so the LA effectively had no chance to intervene.

Not sure why you are struggling with her being better off not working.

If the rise in costs is takes the total to more than the mums salary, and she can avoid incurring those costs by giving up her job, then she is better off not working and not incurring the costs. 🤷‍♀️.

I hope the LA make a statement to clarify

You are not correct. There are several reasons why they could have won an appeal, only one of which is that the school was the closest with a space. And indeed, if that was indeed the case, there would have been non need to appeal twice - the first appeal would have been a shoo-in.

I have read LCC’s school transport policy. It’s quite generous and one of the reasons you can appeal is that you feel the council didn’t adequately take into account any special circumstances. I also think that they didn’t appeal twice - they followed the appeals process, which allows for an appeal decision to be appealed against, and I think this (like many other aspects) is being misrepresented in the press coverage.

I wonder what LCC’s side of this story would be. I suspect the outcome of this will be that LCC removes its current subsidised or free travel for post 16 education to pay for families such as this one, and takes its generous and flexible school transport policy and replaces it with something much more rigourous and hard line, which would absolutely stop situations like this arising again.

Home education means the council has no obligations towards your child other than an annual check. The cost and format of education is entirely down to the parents.

Some children with EHCP get a EOTAS package but that is not home education.

The LA have no right to share personal details by making such a statement.

LAs regularly deny parents things they are entitled to especially if they cost money. Indeed they will spend huge amounts of time and money trying to do so. Why else do you think LAs lose over 98% of SEND tribunals?

Why shouldn’t they surely now that it’s in the public domain we are entitled to both sides of the case ?

Which is why the government are coming for DLA and pip next. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

Yeah, because the Tories were totally going to look after people on benefits and Reform would happily scrap them. Labour have at least junked some of the worst proposals.

The LEA will not make a statement- they are bound by a duty of confidentiality. So the parents and the paper can say whatever they like without fear of contradiction.