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.

Yep it applies here too

This! School taxis is the reason council tax is out of control. Sorry but get your own bloody child to school or home educate

So you'd prefer working parents to leave their jobs in order to HE, providing quite possibly a sub-standard education and making their children miss out on the social benefits of school, and removing their taxes from the budgets which benefit everyone, because the state can't provide a local school place? Yep, makes total sense.

Why are people so desperate to let the state off the hook. I'm all for supporting oneself and living within one's own means but education is a fundamental right and that shouldn't change.

(Not slamming HE - it works for some, but it absolutely has to be a choice not a requirement if it's going to work)

Amazing!

How funny that they had to do the same thing for their other daughter including the publicity stunt and still enrolled their youngest in private.
Imagine making such a mockery of your children’s lives like this? All the DM sad photos in her uniform for a few quid. It’s disgusting.

paywall

Where are you getting that from? It just says he spent 23 years working in the army. And she was a nurse. Ie they contributed to society.

OK - if you're entitled to it, go for it

You do realise how childish that sounds though? "out of spite"

Oh well, at least Labour have made it back from the VAT they charged on private school fees.

There are many reasons - note no children in private schools. Not really for this thread though. This is the result of a poor, simplistic policy that appeals to people with no logical thinking what so ever. It worked. People are now delighted a disabled child and their family are missing out and want ‘more’ taken away. So the next think will be DLA and PIP. People are just too simple to join the dots and understand cause and effect.

My DC waited 3 months for a school place to open up when we moved house. It was our decision to move mid year. It's not reasonable for parents to expect spare places in every school as suits, that's what would be crazy! If you're not joining with your cohort, expect some compromise. Simple.

So it's nothing to do with VAT on private school, but simply the LA meeting their legal obligation to make sure this child is suitably educated? So a story about nothing?

I understand that if the VAT means that you have to remove your child from private school that you would be hurt and upset by it, but that such a small number of people, I really can't understand all this moaning! It's tax, and it's optional! If you don't want to pay it there is a perfectly good free alternative.

Why shouldn't schools pay VAT? They are a business, therefore should pay VAT

The change is about parents paying VAT on their fees. It isn't the business that is exempt, but the money paid by individuals for the educational services being provided.

Schools already pay VAT on their purchases, and will now be able to reclaim it.

The fact he was in the army means their private school fees were likely subsidised. And she was a nurse. So they are probably not the very high earners some of you seem to be imagining them to be.

They should never have been exempt from VAT though

This thread. People really hate those with more than them. There are many other benefits and services that people use and that aren’t ’means tested’ (free childcare hours, PIP, pension). Why is this any different?
In addition, I don’t think it was that foreseeable that the VAT would be rolled out in the punitive way that it has.

The nearest state secondary school to where I live is over 9 miles away.

The council fund transport for every single child in the village bar those, like us, who have chosen a different school even further away, or who have gone private. It's not means tested.

Why should parents here pay more because we don't have a secondary school on the doorstep?

my son goes to school 40 miles away! no way could I take him and fetch him from school!

Why? What other country does it? As I say. Far too simplistic and the results of that are on this thread. There will be real tears when DLA and UC gets hit as the vulnerable are now fair game. With all due respect, you need to wake up and see what’s in front of you.

I confess I haven’t RTFT but I saw this story yesterday on the local MPs FB page, and imo it absolutely stinks.

I know the area well. All the schools in Rutland, where this school is, are oversubscribed because the county is small, the schools are excellent and there’s been massive amount of house building in the past 10-15yrs without any thought as to where these extra children will attend school. When families move into the local military camp 7miles away they find it almost impossible to get their children into Catmose, mid year, because it’s not their catchment school. The catchment school is, also, oversubscribed. Children from nearby Melton Mowbray, also, cannot get into Catmose.

This woman enlisted the local Tory MP for help. The MP has been banging on about the VAT on private school fees since before Labour were elected. The very same MP, during Covid, said that children whose parents were on benefits should not be given any money during the holidays because they’d spend it on drink and drugs anyway.

As soon as the MP is involved the child manages to get a place in a school 25 miles from home, out of county which is oversubscribed. It doesn’t add up. Then the Telegraph break the story of the council having to pay £8000 a year to get her to school. This isn’t about the money, it’s about scoring points, and it’s pathetic.

The MP has been banging on about children with SEN at private schools but was quite happy to watch the outstanding-rated nursery school, for children with SEN close under the Tories. She doesn’t care about all children, just the rich ones.

Why should any parent be forced into home education? If govt wants to put VAT on private schools, they should have been prepared for an influx into state.

Turns out a local school had a place from September, the school fees needed to be paid for the full term until April anyway. Seems this whole thing could have been avoided and she would have had a local school at the start of the new school year.

Can't open the story. Can you cut and paste please?

Has the family done this before?

@MrsSchrute So it's nothing to do with VAT on private school, but simply the LA meeting their legal obligation to make sure this child is suitably educated? So a story about nothing?"

Yep. A complete non story. As I said- the way the parents managed the situation might be a story but the transport isn't.

School transport is overwhelmingly used to take children with disabilities to schools that meet their needs. Which I presume no one is objecting to?

So perhaps the child needs moving to local school when place is available then.

Childcare hours are absolutely means tested. There is a minimum earnings and a maximum threshold.

What influx?

There is plenty of space in the state sector.

'A study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, cited by the government, suggests private schools could lose between 4 per cent and 7 per cent of pupils in the coming years because of the addition of VAT to fees.

At secondary level, when any pressure would be most keenly felt, our exclusive analysis of Department for Education data found that 144 of 152 council areas in England would have enough available places to accommodate 7 per cent of local private school pupils in the 2025/26 school year'

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-will-adding-vat-to-private-school-fees-overwhelm-state-school-classes