to think private schools having charitable status is taking the piss

[zanz1bar]

Most private schools have their charitable status as an accident of history. Does a school like Eton really deserve the same financial status as the NSPCC.

Can it really be justified by a few subsidized places.

theres enough labour MPs who demonstrate soapsy's point...

OK, there are exceptions but for most parents 'the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many', being only human.

WHich has nothing to do with the subject on the card but its late so who cares.

Grimma, you've made a fabulous point about the catch22 of schools offering bursaries. It does appear that someone has an agenda to close small independent schools.

I think independent schools offer a public service in that they offer a choice in curricula that state schools don't, can't or won't.

Soapsy, I'm in complete agreement with your anti-socialist perspective.

I agree with Soapsy too.

I am amazed when people claim to put the educational needs of other people's children ahead of their own.

Why are you amazed???

I don't think there is anything particularly peculiar about people caring aboutthe education for children whose parents can't afford to pay fees. Sounds pretty normal to me.

Why does the presence of one imply the absence of the other. I don't think Soapsy or science are saying that they don't care about the education for children whose parent's can't afford to pay fees. Why do you think this is being said?

It has to be for the public benefit- education for a privileged minority is not a charitable activity. A choice of curricula for a few is not enough

"Where benefit is to a section of the public, the opportunity to benefit must not be unreasonably restricted:

by geographical or other restrictions; or
by ability to pay any fees charged
Principle 2c People in poverty must not be excluded from the opportunity to benefit"

That's from the charity commission.

If schools don't want to give bursaries then they don't need to- just give up their charitable status and pay VAT.

As for the argument that private sector parents are saving the tax payer money and therefore soemhow this justifies the position - I don't understand. Does this mean that as I don't have children and am therefore subsidising the whole education sector that I should not pay VAT on anything?

I don't think you are a charity, DG, so you have to pay VAT like the rest of us.

It's all over the news this morning that our local schools are bursting at the seams because so many parents that would have gone private now can't afford to. I teach at a private school, yet we are (touch wood) pretty full.

What on earth would happen to your taxes, Hatwoman, if all the private schools that are still going were forced to close? In our area that would involve a massive amount of extra state places and therefore a hugely significant increase of public money. I can assure you that the vast amount of parents at my school are already paying high taxes and, therefore, effectively paying for their own child's education twice over. That's fine-it's their choice, but it's pretty short sighted of you to say that you are upset about 'effectively subsidising' their child's education. You would be subsidising a whole lot more if the schools went under because they didn't have ch. status.

DG - You seem to missing a lot of points.

Firstly, in order for a school to give busaries, it would need to raise tuitions, thus further restricting the number of students who could attend. MOST independent schools are running close to the edge of their budgets, and strive to keep tuitions as low as possible.

Secondly, the charity commission articles you're quoting are the changes made to the original charity law, the application of which is being disputed with regards to independent schools.

Independents are NOT businesses in the ordinary sense.

What people seem to be objecting to is the word charity applied to a perception of privilege.

As has been explained earlier, schools can't 'just give up their charitable status and pay VAT'.

Apparently when this process began the schools were told that it absolutely wasn't about bursaries. Having read the document on the Preston school it seems that was simply a lie, so I guess they were set up to fail the test. Whatever the rights and wrongs, this does seem to be driven by an anti private school political agenda.

Personally I wouldn't mind paying a bit more in fees to subsidize some places (this is about the only context in this whole thread where the use of the word 'subsidize' is accurate). I care about my DDs education but also about other children too. But I really don't see how such places could be sensibly allocated in a primary school. Can anyone with experience of a primary school which does operate bursaries explain this to me?

"If schools don't want to give bursaries" But they do want to give bursaries and ram it down the children's throats daily just how lucky and privileged their are and how they should use that privilege to help others, that's the whole ethos of our school. And they certainly are not unique, every private school I viewed had the same charitable attitude, they give back an awful lot.

"So you'd honestly put your perception of the needs of society over the needs of your individual child?

It is perfectly normal human behaviour to do what 'you' believe to be best for your child, regardless of how diverse we might all be. If the needs of your child happen to coincide with your own set of values, fantastic, and 'you'(generic you, rather than you personally) can do your bit for societal good, but it doesn't always work out that way. People will (generally) choose to do what is best for them personally rather than for the common good.

And I'm sorry if you find it offensive, as that is not my intention. I just subscribe to a selfish gene viewpoint. We are all pre-programmed to be somewhat less than truly altruistic, however hard we might try to be, or want to be. "

This ISN'T the selfish gene viewpoint. The selfish gene accounts for such things as altrusim, communality, putting your child second and so forth. The selfish gene would comfortably accomodate sending your children to a state school, even where you believed it was less in their selfish interests than the private school nearby that you could also afford, because you recognised, say, that your children live in society and so its not a great idea to closet them off, or because you felt that the way to go way to put lots of energy into your local school so that lots of children could benefit, thus improving the educational standards locally and hopefully the world your children were going to inherit. And so on.

The trouble with the selfish gene theory is that its a possible explaination (and a very tory one), rather than a predicter of behaviour. And of course it is unprovable.

Do all pupils at private schools realise they are 'priviledged'?

I don't think they do. I think they all mix with the same 'sort' and they think they are normal, some of them probably think they are positively hard done by.

I think they go off and build orphanages in Africa on their gap years to help the poor. I think they don't realise that not everyone has, like, a 'gap year' etc etc.

a teenager i know is going off to africa next week to help build a school (or extension of school) he's from normal comp. really isn't just privates that do that.

Children from our local comprehensive routinely do these things, too. It's certainly not just private schools.

I think my DD know she's lucky to go to a private school. She mixes with the neighbours kids who don't. DD gets to mix with a greater range of ethnicities than their white ghetto CofE school, incidentally.

They are all entirely 'normal'!

As an indie school user myself I still question the chariotable status I must say.
However in purely pragmatic terms I wonder what removing the tax exemption would acheive.

Our schhol worked out we will loose around £150 per pupil. So the entire loss to the school would be less than one year's school fees. The school can bear this without batting the proverbial eyelid.

Ditto schools like Eton and others that folk like to poke the finger at.

The one's that will suffer will be the small provincial schools where the parents are perhaps not loaded, where the other educational choices are few. Or schools that offer a very different educational choice.
Or those school where each pay according to his means.

I'm not sure that forcing the closure of those types of schools is really hitting the belly of the capitalist beast where it hurts.

Litchick, I think your point about which schools will suffer is very well made.

Another issue has to do with those schools who are endowed with property. Most of these scenarios involve the property embedded in a charity, and if school's lose their charitable status, then they lose the property as well.

Ironically, those schools with such endowments are most able to meet the whimsical bursary criteria, unlike small un-endowed schools.

If your issue is with Eton, this application of the new charity law is not going to give you any satisfaction.

Zazizoma
i know where the quote comes from.I just happen to believe that this should be (at least) the minimal requirement for a charity and all the financial benefits that this entails.

To satisfy the requirements is not merely a matter of bursaries but giving to the community in a multitude of different ways.

If they cannot manage their budgets - then they need to look at the underlying cause - lack of demand for their services , overpaying for staff etc - these schools always trumpet how small class sizes are etc- well this costs money which has to be paid for by someone - and I think it should be the people using the services

I wish people would stop calling private schools "independent." They are not independent. They are dependent on the incomes of the parents.

There is an argument for having an "independent" sector, but form this would take and how it would be achieved is a matter for great debate.

I'm glad fillyjonk has pointed out the total misuse of "selfish gene" in the context of this argument - did it better than I could have done and saved me the job!

At the risk of repeating myself I doubt that there are many schools out there who are desperate to hold onto charitable status because of any financial incentives in terms on ongoing government subsidy. The reason that this is a difficult issue for the schools is that once you have been set up as a charity there is no way to rid yourself of charitable status without either closing the school or selling it to another body.

The way the Charity Commission is pursuing this issue is to try and hound schools into using a certain %age if their income to fund bursaries, thus representing a form of taxation on the majority, though not all, private school fee payers (as this "tax" will effectively remove other pupils fro the state sector). Judging from the CC's recent actions it is likely that this tax will be around 5-7% of fees (ie schools will have to show that at least 5% of their income is used for bursaries).

Given that this tax will be around £500 per annum per pupil on average, whereas the perks of being a charity are £166 per annum, it is pretty clear that no sane school would stick with their charitable status if they could get out of it. Especially now that the government is showing that they will try to find a way of interfering with the independent sector (which, UD, is meant to be "independent" from government management).

Certainly most fee-paying parents aren't getting any benefit from the charitable status.

UQD, everything depends on something - the use of the term Independent clearly is intended to denote independent of the state. If you're going to quibble with words, can I view my local school as private because DD is excluded from it because of my lack of belief in the supernatural>

It hardly seems fair to retrospectively change the rules on what constitute a charity and then not let those who then fail the criteria simply drop their charitable status, does it?

Fee-paying schools are officially called independent, because they are independent of most state control.

The term 'private' also includes acedemies in the maintained sector.

In the context of this thread, independent is the correct term.