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.

How ridiculous - a child (13 not 15) has had to move to the only school with space, a 50mile round trip away and the parent who was a nurse is expected to get her there (pick her up at 3pm) had to give up her job to do so just because she was a privately educated child! And can afford it?? Rubbish. She’s entitled to be at a school in her area. Now laughably the child is costing the stage tens of thousands more. The worse thing is this is not an isolated case. Remember this is a 13 yr old girl at the heart of this politics or not 1000’s of children are being disrupted. The policy will make next to nothing.

Can you provide a link, please? With comparative data re transfers from private to state in previous years as well, so that we can properly compare?

Daily Mail. Yawn.

“And remember” the probability this is solely due to the change of VAT fees is tiny.

No
Figures were available ages ago and published and I read them at the time as I’m interested. ( I didn’t keep any links….just in case, why would I )

You could google
Suggest across all areas to avoid spin

What an absurd thing to say.

The UK will never have any of the best systems in the world, given that now so many of it's population is lazy, non-net contributing and entitled!

Why on earth should the few carry the many?!

You are so right! It's the same principle as why do all these people keep having children if they know they can't afford them and have to take advantage of tax credits and child benefit (which they are entitled to). If only the parents planned properly! Why do people claim universal credit to top up their income (which they are also entitled to)?! If only they had planned properly!

ROFL

familiar with this story. The school is out of the county - a 2 hour round trip. Twice a day. No places available locally.

school was different county 2 hour round trip. Not round the corner! No school places locally.

You want them ‘to suck it up buttercup’. They have done so. They made the very best of a bad hand. Good for them. Good luck to anyone who does that. They are not taking anything from anyone else, they are taking what is rightfully theirs. They are using state school education, which is their right and what Labour wants to happen. I blame Labour for rushing through a bloody stupid policy which has the potential to cause considerable problems for everyone, rich, poor and in between. Give your head a wobble (ridiculous phrase) for blindly following a socialist doctrine.

VAT on school fees is a very recent policy that nobody could have foreseen. Why would they have anticipated it? £4k on fees - many spend more on car finance. It would have made more sense for the authority to pay the school fees than taxis. On top of the £8k cost to the taxpayer of state schooling. Previously this child's education cost the taxpayer nothing. No country in the world taxes education. Apart from ours

I've tried googling. Haven't found any data that evidences an increase in the number of children transferring from private to state. I did find something from the ISC which stated that pupil numbers in their member schools had dropped, but their data also suggested that numbers had been falling steadily for the last five years, so it isn't really clear as to whether VAT was a factor. I also found some data from the DfE which suggested the overall independent school population had actually increased in 2023/24. Obviously no data yet for 2024/25, so again, too early to say whether the VAT has had a measurable impact.

I'm more than happy to look at reliable data sources if anyone has them. Otherwise, it seems to be just projections and anecdata on either side.

Why wouldn't they have anticipated? Don't people usually do a bit of horizon scanning when they are planning a big financial commitment? One poster further up the thread mentioned that they had factored it into their planning since 2019. Given that the child in question must have started secondary school within the last couple of years or so, I'd be surprised if the parents hadn't at least considered the possibility. It had, after all, been Labour policy for quite some time.

Wow! Everyone, regardless of income is entitled to a school place and if it’s not nearby they are entitled to transport to get them there and back. Why shouldn’t she claim the taxi for her child? She’s paid her taxes and not taken up a place at a state school so was saving the government money. This spiteful tax disrupts and discriminates against privately educated children and will end up costing the government more than it makes. It is absolutely the politics of envy. The whole point of the tax is to level up education and to means test for the taxi is not levelling up. You can’t have it both ways. It serves this awful government right if this ends up costing them. I would absolutely make them pay. Yes my children were privately educated (just missed the VAT) as was I.

I guess the key point is - were there really no places locally? Although it seems to upset some people on this thread, the family are entitled to a state school place for their child and they're entitled to transport if it's more than 3 miles away. It doesn't matter how much money they have because entitlement to state education is not means tested. If there really were no closer school places when they were looking, then I don't see what the problem is. The kid needs to be in school and expecting her to move school yet again when she's already settled in a new school is unreasonable. And yes, it's a waste of money but then so much government spending is.

Except this is LA funding the transport. It’s impossible to plan for private evacuees and yes, vindictive taxation has a cost and it’s often unintended.

Evacuees? 😆

If private schools didn't exist, then the rich will all live within the catchment areas for the best schools in the country driving up the house prices there. Poor people would then not be able to afford to live within those areas and then those schools will pretty much act like private schools without the fees (and possibly all the extra curricular activities).

Anti Labour story from the daily fail.
Quelle surprise

@Kpo58 How do people not see this?

If you can’t afford to send your kids to private school, getting rid of private schools would just mean you couldn’t afford to live in the area you currently live and you’d have to send your kids to a worse school.

Wealth translates to choice. If you make the best choice unavailable, the richest will just get first dibs on the next best choice and everyone just has to move down the social ladder.

I’m so surprised with people saying ‘why doesn’t she homeschool her’ and commenting on her parents choices to change job hours to accommodate being around for their child.
Why should they have to pay out of pocket to get their child to a state school further away because the local ones are full? None of this is the parents fault.

Labour completely disregarded the number of parents that make sacrifices to be able to send their children to private schools for their own personal reasons (should that be bullying, well-being, better environment etc). The super wealthy aren’t the only people to use alternative schooling to state schools. Many normal hard working families make financial sacrifices to enable their children to be happy. The recent tax increase has been enough for families to be unable to sustain school fees. This then has a knock on effect - having extra children in already oversubscribed state schools and the local council having to foot transport bills etc…

Its been catastrophic for lots of hard working families already pushed financially 😞

There was plenty of warning that the VAT was going to be added to private school fees. They should have put their DS name down for state schools as soon as they heard this was going to happen. Surely they knew they couldn't afford the fees many months ago! It's a disgrace that the council should have to foot the bill for her taxies because the family didn't work out their finances better, and seem to have buried their heads in the sand instead of getting her into a school in time.

So you are just talking nonsense then?

FACTS or STFU.

When they fo

Labour came to power in July. The school term starts in September, the VAT started in January so hardly months to plan and secure a state place. Also many schools did not announce if they were going to pass all the 20% VAT on or part or none of it so how could you make definitive plans? Many parents make massive sacrifices to pay the fees, not everyone is loaded