Private Schools proposal for up to 10,000 free places each year

[Aussiejazz]

What do you think of this idea to offer up to 10,000 free places to lower income families each year?

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/12/09/government-serious-schools-work-everyone-will-jump-proposal/

Yes I don't like the idea of paying three times either - that full time working single mother parents who put every last penny into school fees are not just paying taxes to help the chidlren of the less well off in school, then paying for their child at £10k to £15k a year out of taxed income and then paying even higher school fees to ensure children of the very less well off or indeed benefits claimants who choose not to work then get to go to the sdame school too. it is the bit like the point I have often made to me by single mothers paying school fees that they might not get a bursary when housewives with husbands who manipulate self employed income to appear to be not very well off with the non working wife who could perfectly well get a job if she could be bothered are able to get a bursary on low income grounds!

EnormousTiger Thu 15-Dec-16 09:25:06 We do pay twice. many of us wuold like that recognised with say a £5k a year voucher we could use in part payment of private school fees.

I'm not very cluded up on tax so excuse my ignorance. Are you saying that £5,000 of the tax you pay every year goes specifically towards state education?

TalkinPeace

Surely there is a point when those people that use education, healthcare, transport and energy (i.e. everyone) will realise that "austerity" is a great way of protecting the interests of the few over the many?

How deep can the cuts go before voters realise this ..... a long long way I fear.

I don't like private schools because an exclusive school seems to me a poor school (depending on your values). As soon as a child is taught to think "Oh I am lucky to be at St Trinians....." they are being taught that other ordinary children are not "the lucky ones" but somehow "other" and the whole them-and-us thing begins and sadly continues through life.

We had an inter-school coding competition in town recently and the private school's presentation was really just a marketing exercise ("Here's another picture of our school"). They had not learnt to code. They had learnt that they were different and special because they had big lawns and a sports hall.

As to the economics, I don't understand it but I'm curious about it. Aren't I the one paying twice? Because I as mum A am paying more tax than I should? Because the tax of mum B who sends her kids to private school is missing from the Exchequer? I'm not being particularly political here: I also notice with "interest" that I'm paying for final salary pension schemes in the public sector, etc.
Happy to be educated.

I think it was TalkinPeace (who has a habit of being irritatingly right) who pointed out that what we have in Kent, North Yorks, etc, should be called a secondary modern system.

hvae, not sure I understand. If you and I both work full time we both pay income tax. We both pay tax. The cost of a state school place is £5k. If we both had one child at school and mine was in a private school you would waste the state £5k and I would save it £5k. My school fees would pay tax to fund state school teachers' pensions and I would also pay school fees to pay for private school teachers' pensions (private school teachers are usually in the same pension fund as state school teachers). £5k is about the cost of a state school place per child. It is not the amount of tax I pay. Some state schools get more income per child so it is not necessarily always £5k.

thanks for replying I will take a look tomorrow x
(ps you don't mean "waste" I think)?

Kate so an extra £2.5bn of state spending on school places and rich people have £2.5bn of extra holidays? That sounds a bit of a weird desire.

Hi enormous,

If we both earn and pay tax, you reduce the amount of tax you pay by using the charitable status offset whereas I can't do that. Your tax is missing.

Is £5k per annum, by the way? I never thought about cost to the state per child per year.... it's interesting.

What "charitable status offset" would that be, then? Either you're presenting very misleadingly something that's already been discussed on this thread (charitable status slightly reduces fees compared to what they would be without it, assuming that without it schools still did all the bursaries and all the supporting state schools that they do now, but wouldn't be obliged to do then) or you actually have a misunderstanding about how tax works. There is no tax allowance for people who pay school fees; they come in full out of our post-tax income.

Maybe the confusion arises because there is special tax treatment of money you donate to a charity? This does not apply if you buy something from a charity, e.g. education.

If we both earn and pay tax, you reduce the amount of tax you pay by using the charitable status offset whereas I can't do that. Your tax is missing

^. I can assure you this is not the case. Lots of tax paid, no employee tax missing. It might be that the school fees are slightly less but that's a different point. At a personal level, for the same income, no less tax paid.

Have - each year I have an income. It is taxed. I have money left over to spend on anything I want. Inevitably this includes bills and housing costs etc. If there is anything left over then, I can spend it on anything I want - holidays, new car, private schools fees. The fees come out of post taxed income. That is why private school parents think they are paying "twice" for education.

The private school is a registered charity (because it provides education and falls into the definition of a charity). As a result they can claim charitable status and not pay VAT (I think). Should this be removed, or the school decide it no longer wants to be a charity, parents would pay an additional 20% or so on the fees. However, the school would then not be obliged to share its facilities or teachers, work with local state schools, give bursaries etc, as it is at the moment in order to maintain its charitable status.

I don't know what you mean by "you reduce the amount of tax you pay by using the charitable status offest"....I pay my tax before I decide if I have enough spare cash to pay for school fees - a discretionary item.

Enormous was saying she saves the state money by not taking a state school place (at the cost of £5.5k per year). She is still taxed on her income (which contributes to the education bill for the country), does not use the service, and pays for her children to attend private school (which employs teachers paid by the parents who send their kids to the private school). If you send your child to a state school, you are costing the state £5.5k per year, but of course you've paid for some/all of this through your tax bill, deducted from your pay each month.

If parents choose to donate to the school bursary fund then they are allowed to gift aid it, as it is deemed a charitable donation. This payment is discretionary, not compulsory (unlike the fees), the same as any charitable donation, and many bursary pots are monies raised on top of the school fees from parents. Only schools like Eton have a historical endowment for bursaries and plush buildings which they manage very efficiently through investments etc.

Parents at the private schools I know manage their old boys/girls network efficiently and encourage them to contribute to fund raising, as well as come and give talks to pupils etc. Robert Peston set up a brilliant scheme called Speakers for Schools for the state sector. I don't know how widely it is used, but I found the website very interesting.

It's the same with private health care.

If you pay taxes and pay for private treatment, you are in effect paying twice.

The very rich who are net contributors are more likely to also pay for private healthcare and education.

On the other hand, arguably, they also benefit the most from living in a stable country with an educated, healthy population.

It's an argument with no end.

However, I don't think 10,000 private school places will make a huge amount of difference to education in the UK.

"the school decide it no longer wants to be a charity, parents would pay an additional 20% or so on the fees"Where do yo get the 20% figure from?

Fees are exempt from VAT. It's nothing whatsoever to do with charitable status - it's an EU wide regulation.

The estimated benefit (posted earlier and no different figure offered) is £600 per pupil per year. This is around 4% (based on a £5k a term school)

Yes and I do not think it likely that private schools will lose charitable status. Most of them are not paying dividends to shareholders and they are doing good in the sense that education is regarded by most as a good.

Many of us would happily pay an extra £600 a year if charitable status were removed.

I would certainly favour an extension of the nursery years provision where your voucher can be used against private school fees at age 4. Why not extend that for older children so all parents can use that voucher at a state or private school of their choice and top it up if they want to or can?

EnormousTiger Fri 16-Dec-16 08:53:20 Why not extend that for older children so all parents can use that voucher at a state or private school of their choice and top it up if they want to or can?

You seem to think that most parents using state education have a choice of school.

I'm not really getting my head around the idea that you pay £x amount towards state education each year and get £5,000 back to spend how you like. As I asked earlier, do you pay £5,000 towards state education each year?

I would understand people wanting to claim their contributions back, however, given how badly funded state education is, do you think that is a good idea?

I feel as if a lot of the assumptions that are made about independent schools are based on the high profile schools like Eton/ Westminster etc. In reality most independent schools AREN'T cash-rich with famous donors wafting in and out with million pound cheques!

Our experience (top 50 independent school) is that parents are not loaded, and are making family choices (forgoing cars, holidays, pensions) to put their children through what they believe is the best school for them.

I accept that we 'pay twice' through taxes, and that's fine. If school fees were to rise another 10% to subsidise more bursary places then we might need to consider our plans.
Very little mention seems to have been made of the various ways independent schools contribute back into the community in order to meet the requirements of their charitable status.
If our school were to lose its charitable status, then it may no longer feel able, or obliged to do all the following:

• make its halls and music studio available for free to local groups (choirs, U3A, charities) several nights a week (each night costs approx £40 in caretaking overtime fees)
• give local primary schools free use of its swimming pool several times a week
• make school rugby/hockey pitches (+ groundsman, lighting, facilities costs) available to other schools and local sports clubs
• host regional sports matches/festivals for all local schools (including catering, prizes etc)
• lend mini-buses (fuel + drivers+insurance) to local primary for small school trips
• make stage/hall facilities (& technicians) available for local primary end of term performance
• advertising and sponsorship of every local event/festival/magazine

In many of these cases it's not just about mopping up 'spare capacity' - there's staffing and associated costs.
Based on the estimate of £200 per pupil, charitable status is only worth about £17k a year to our school. I bet the school ploughs way more value than that back into the community.

I pay a huge lot more than £5k a year tax but of course it goes on all those things HMRC tells you with its pie chart when you make your payment that your money has gone towards. I cannot remember what amount was for education.

I doubt the state will take up the recent suggestion of what is basically a return to the assisted places scheme (or even the original "direct grant" schools of the 1960s which was similar).

Nor do I expect the recently changed laws on what is "charity" to change either but they are still interesting topics to discuss.

EnormousTiger Fri 16-Dec-16 11:25:03 I pay a huge lot more than £5k a year tax...I cannot remember what amount was for education.

So you don't actually know what you are paying towards state education yet you think the government should pay you £5000 a year towards your DCs private education?

Perhaps it would be more reasonable for you to want the tax contributions you make towards the stated education system back so you can spend it as you please?

Oh gosh I did think it was like gifts to charity!

So the basic fees are out of taxed income?

And extra donations not? Have I got it now?

It's more complicated than 'what you pay in tax towards education in a year'.

Schools rely on the tax contributions of everyone throughout their life including people who never have children.

That is part of the problem with the American health system - people opt out of insurance if they think they won't need it. The tax system depends on contributions from everyone. In return we get an educated population, not individual school places.

merrymouse Fri 16-Dec-16 13:36:14 ... not individual school places.

Which is why asking for £5000 to go and spend on a DCs private education makes not sense.

What people seem to be ignoring is the fact that the taxes they are paying are a way of investing into an education service that their family members may need to use in years to come.

And in nursery school the UK state currently gives parents an amount per year they can spend at their private school and that sum is deducted from and used against the school fees bill. It stops at age 5 I think. So my suggestion is not a new or unusual thing. It came in under Tony Blair.

The difference is that nursery education isn't compulsory and the state has never attempted to make adequate provision in the state system for all nursery age children.

Many people don't have access to a state nursery. They are supposed to have access to a state school.