PTA charged by the school to run a fundraising event

[belgraham]

I'm new to the whole PTA world, and have been told by the primary school that the PTA is charged £75 each time we want to have a fundraising event (such as a fair or disco) at the school. Is this something that other people have come across? It seems counter-intuitive to me, to charge the people who are raising money for you!
Any advice warmly welcomed!

When I was involved with the PTA, We were charged for use of the school outside school hours. It wasn't the school charging, but the local authority, to cover janitor time for opening up/locking up etc.

Nope, never heard of it. Sounds extremely silly. Do they hire the school out to other people? Maybe they don't have complete ownership of the building.

Hmm, thanks for the quick reply. I will check into these options.

Whereabouts are you?

I'm in Glasgow. At ds' primary school there was only one night in the week we could get the let free (at his school it was a Wednesday - don't know if it was a different at other schools). Not sure if there is even a "free" night at the secondary school - and what's more, at the secondary, the more of the school we want to book (even for fundraising), the more it costs.

It's not the school that is charging, it is the authority. I think there are special rates for "school" bodies as opposed to external organizations. There are still costs to cover - janitors don't work for free!

What everyone else says, but also possibly that the school, or council don't actually own/manage the buildings. A few years ago some commercial partnerships were entered into, with the council selling the buildings in return for refurbishment, then leasing them back for 30/50/60 years. It works better in some places than others.

I also wondered if PFI was the reason.

We used to be charged by the school for using some equipment . They hired it in and recharged us for our portion of usage. It cost them hire+VAT, which they could recover. It then cost us recharge+VAT, which we couldn't recover. So funds to the value of the VAT were being lost by PTA/school in the direction of the Government. So the school stopped charging us, we therefore made a bigger profit and so made a bigger donation back to school.
Are you being charged VAT on the rent?

A caretaker or similar would have to be employed to lock and unlock, to clean the facilities, replenish supplies, e,g, toilet paper & hand towels, empty bins if necessary, turn heating on and off if it's cold. Plus of course there is a cost to the school in terms of utilities used, why should they have to pay out of their designated budget for those sorts of things, it is totally right that it comes from the profits of the fundraising event rather than the school coffers. Money in school budgets is ring fenced for certain things, so whilst the school would gain in terms of money for something exciting, they would lose money for essentials if they took the hit on funding the caretaker/additional utilities etc...

You have to remember that the PTA stands as a separate entity to the school. The school cannot tell the PTA what to do, but the PTA can, when giving a donation be specific about what the monies are spent on.

As such the PTA is viewed as any member of the public would be when using school premises and if the school hires out rooms it would be viewed dimly by HRMC if it let rooms out at "mates rates". on top of this you also have to take into all the costs which Trinitiy covers.

We are never charged for using school premises. The head or deputy always attend and lock up etc and we clean up so no extra costs for the caretaker etc.

No never heard of it.

But the local village hall with a hall much bigger than the school hall was only £20 a night plus pound coins for the heater, so it would be bonkers for the school to try and charge.

We are charged per hour for each let, even the PTA meetings. We have to take these outlays into account when deciding what to charge for attendance at events. We are £100 down before each disco.