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.

And why would the Government not realise that a 20% rise in school fees from VAT would be the straw that broke the camel’s back from many, and that there wouldn’t be enough places at local schools, requiring those children to be entitled to be transported free to the nearest school.

I think this article is designed to create outrage. However, it shows the parents in a bad light - they are poor planners and never could really afford private school.

A parental cost benefit analysis probably came into it; paying for private school comes with many more benefits than paying for transport to take your child to a state school for many, particularly when the latter can be funded.

Additionally, we have no idea if this child has a bursary, or scholarship or if the dad's company helped with school fees (which many security companies who deploy ex-army professionals abroad do).

The parents would have had to cover the annual school increase, the newly added VAT, and to have done this for three children. Perhaps they thought that keeping their young children in private school whilst moving their eldest to a state school would have meant a more level playing field between siblings (something that mums net are so pro).

Why should a woman have to give up her job so her children can attend state education? That is so detrimental to the entire family, particularly when you think of sex equality and health equality.

We have no idea if there was additional change in family finance, ill health, caring responsibilities, mortgage increases that prompted this to be a quick decision the family had to make.

There are too many unknowns to judge, but a woman should not be told by society to give up work to ferry their child to school - women are already in a very unpredictable and often vulnerable position in society, earning an income is one of the best things they can do for themselves.

This. I have had a Daily Mail article written about an event I witness involving a family member of mine. (So I 100% know what happened.) It was fascinating how the event was changed / distorted / re-written to make a point that simply wasn’t at all true. (It was also quite upsetting although luckily it wasn’t about something “serious” so it wasn’t too bad.)

This particular school is in Oakham, which is in Rutland not Lincolnshire.

I do however agree that it's difficult to believe that there really are no places at any other school.

Exactly, and the child is the one who suffers from their omissions.

She has had to move once already because they sent her to a school that they couldn't afford. She is now very likely to have to move again because the council won't want to carry on funding her transport if a place becomes available closer to home. A situation which would very likely have been avoided if they had applied for a state school place at a sensible transition point.

These are the types of parents who turn the world against the private school parents. Just aiming to score political points. This isn't because of the VAT raid it is because someone was living beyond their means and then expects the council to sort it out for them.

Maybe the parents should have planned better, and foreseen that Labour would probably get into power and raise VAT… but the proximate cause of this situation is the Government. Ultimately they caused this.

Blaming the parents is merely a form of victim blaming, where the person responsible for the action isn’t held culpable, but the person on the receiving end is because they could have avoided it by taking different action. It’s a bit like blaming a woman for being assaulted because she should have realised that going out at night was dangerous, but not blame the man who assaulted her!

I have lived rurally by the way in three separate locations across the UK - regularly needed a taxi in the morning and even 10 years ago it was always impossible to book during school hours as they were all full for school runs.

completely constructed story to whip up faux outrage. What sort of twatty parent can afford private school fees one minute, and then suddenly can’t afford to transport their child to a free school. It’s the parents who are at fault here. Complete spongers and they should be ashamed of themselves, not flaunting it in the daily wail 😡

This will be a very short term issue, for a very small number of DC. If it becomes a sustained issue I imagine transport will become means tested.
If continuity of education is so important to parents they should make sure they have some contingency. Fees always go up, and incomes are not infallible. This VAT has been talked about for years now, not as though it was a massive shock coming from nowhere.

"complete spongers" who for years have not relied on the state to pay for their child's education...

Ok let's have a laugh! For one it's the Fail online and two so you know how many children are being taxied to schools more than 25 miles away every single Mon to Fri? And have done for years???

My eyes rolled right down the street reading this. The mother thinks she's ever so clever and has subtly made some sort of a brilliant point but she's just made herself look foolish.

Poor kid being plastered all over the internet because her parents are buffoons.

Or maybe the Government are poor planners and should have foreseen that situations like this will arise?

Now the councils are out of pockets, some private schools might have to close and the taxpayer will have to pay for additional state school places.

It’s really bizarre, the way they implement policies with no regard for the consequences.

How on earth are you brining up random unchecked drivers?

We’re discussing a family gaming the system for all it’s worth when they could easily arrange their own way for their child to attend school.

Doesn't matter. If you are entitled to claim support for something, it doesn't make you shitty to do so. In this case though, it is being turned into a moral judgement because this family are perceived as wealthy because they had a child in private school.

Of course it would be a shitty thing to do to cut your own legs off so you could claim PIP.

What a biased read! My main concern would be that aside from the child suffering a move to a new school without her friendship group and a long taxi ride each day….her mother is plastering their story in the media.
Presume dad working in security means he is working overseas ( earning a very decent wage), mum owns a company and works.
I suspect she wasn’t flourishing at the private school (no bursary offered) and they decided it wasn’t worth the investment. BTW privately educated children struggle to get places in education and employment compared to state schooled e.g employers offer fast-track style apprenticeships but typically exclude those from private education, universities are keen to take young adults who have reasonable grades but not a privileged education compared to good grades from privately educated. Unless you are super rich and well-connected, I think you give children better life chances using state school and additional tutoring to fill any gaps.

There are too many unknowns to judge, but a woman should not be told by society to give up work to ferry their child to school

… Especially as (even if many urbanites seem unaware) 100,000s of children are being transported to school by their local council when they similarly are more than 3 miles away from it!

The Mail, twisting things for their own headlines- yep. I wish more people could see this- you are quite right, it would cover year 10 and 11 at most, not for A levels. So already its half the amount the headline suggests. Lying like this should be illegal.

It’s the big picture that will decide whether or not this policy ultimately has any benefit to the tax payer/state education. Dramatic, sensationalist one off examples from the Daily Mail are not a good argument either way.

Nonsense.

People are not victims because they have to pay tax, and it is not victim blaming to suggest that people should take tax into account when planning their financial commitments.

The Labour Party made no secret of their plans regarding VAT on school fees, and they were elected with a clear mandate to implement that policy. Utter bullshit to compare it to a woman being assaulted, and really quite offensive.

If the parents decided to send their child to a school that they couldn't afford, then that is totally on them.

You can’t home educate a child midway through GCSEs. They need to start the new courses and catch up.

Surely the only thing labour did was put VAT on the school fees. The fact that education system has completely broken down and there aren't enough school places is related to their predecessors.
Also what do private school parents expect to happen if they can't pay there fees?

The school run would have been a 50 mile round trip in both the morning and the afternoon. Driving 100 miles per day is not a question of getting up earlier - that’s exhausting. She isn’t just making a point, she’s taking transport that she’s entitled to because the state failed to provide a nearby school place, having shat on her existing arrangements with a big VAT fee increase. There are so many consequences of this policy and it truly stinks for all of us. I am not a VAT paying parent btw.