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.

I bet it's a far more desirable school too...

Because she had already started when they applied. Different if they had applied before she started.

It doesn’t matter even Sen children if there is an any mainstream school or Sen school that offered a space, could meet needs your right to transport is revoked. The only way she is would be entitled to transport is if there was no nearer schools does not matter is she was already a student there or not.

Yeah but in reality if they escalated a complaint to the LGSCO, they would not ask for a child to be moved. So the council knows they're backed into a corner.

Not quite correct. The guidance made it clear that, if there was no nearer school at the time when places were being allocated, but a place becomes available later, this will not affect the right to transport. It is recognised that it would not be fair to allow a child to settle and then effectively to say that they must move schools again if they still need transport

However, if the parents simply put her in that school and it was shown that, at the time they did so there were available places at closer schools, then she wouldn't b entitled to transport.

So yes she did not screw the system at all, there were no available school in 25 mile radius so there for she is entitled to transport the comment
above made it sound like the mum chose to send her to that school and probably didn’t try harder enough.

As far as I'm aware, the academic London day schools are roughly £25-30K now (including VAT and the rates increases). The expensive boarding schools are around £60,000 / yr, mostly a bit under that.

Wow!

Yes, sounds like a bit of a non-story to me. It's a waste of resources but I don't really see what the parents have done wrong.

Exactly, it's not going to be a 12k increase on top of 25-30k as a pp suggested

🤦‍♀️ why do people keep making this idiotic argument.

She didn’t just have to pay the increase! She had to pay the total bill of £25k.

The place would have to be available and offered when she started. Once she had already started at the school it is too late to turn around and say ‘we could have offered her a place at this school’.

Also waiting lists are not in order applied, they are in order of entitlement to a place so you could be second on a list and they have six people offered before you.

At no point does it say they applied using the LA’s approved applications system. They phoned up schools, who will generally say they are full. It takes the LA to invoke the FAP.

Why even send your child 25 miles a day for school. It's too far and too tiring. Mum should have played the waiting game for a more local school. She could have used the money she paid for private schooling for tutoring.

Loads of children travel 25 miles or more to school. The distance isn’t the issue, travel time is. School transport taxis generally don’t just pick up a single child, they tend to go round the houses picking up several so even if you are only six miles from school it could still take you longer than if you are 25 miles away. The courts have set 75 minutes as a maximum reasonable travel time each way.

This girl may have a taxi to herself at the moment but when the new year starts, if not before, she may find herself incorporated into a route to pick up other children en route.

I would expect more local school may have been less desirable so she wanted to get a place at the one she wanted and deal
with things retrospectively

Probably wanted the child to attend a school! Getting science tutors is very hard and this is Lincolnshire not London. Yes, 25 miles is too far and if schools say they are full, they are. Plus the LA probably produces details of where schools have spaces on mine. My school does. At the time they wanted the place, there wasn’t one nearer or no transport would have been agreed at all. A space coming up later is irrelevant.

Besides which, I presume the mother could afford to change jobs/cut her working hours since they no longer had the school fees to pay. In any case, presumably she'll be able to go back to her old job or a similar one now they've got school transport sorted.

I can’t think of anything more deserving of state money than a child with specialist needs.

I’m really glad she’s getting the provision she needs.

Schools shouldn’t be so shit that parents bother looking further afield.
Even if she did cherry pick, which I’m not convinced she did, all she was doing was trying to find a good school for her daughter and there are people on here begrudging that.

How about we demand the government actually does something to improve schools?

You see, the minute you use the words ‘tax break’, you lose all credibility and the rest of your comments won’t be considered. Private parents have NEVER EVER had a tax break.

I didn’t really read past the bit that said ‘Daily Mail’. I knew then it would just be an attention grabbing headline followed by a story full of holes that didn’t add up .

Isn’t that was the VAT on private schools is about. Improving state schools?

I'm not sure this is evidence of problems with schools though. They quite quickly got a place at the only school they applied to, then got the free transport they applied for, and the LA don't appear bothered. Privileged family getting what they wanted, and still not happy. That's the story here. It's a non story.

@TENSsion "Even if she did cherry pick, which I’m not convinced she did, all she was doing was trying to find a good school for her daughter and there are people on here begrudging that."

There is a a system. She appears to have ignored it. Not a good look.