Russian Oligarchs using UK fee paying schools

[Chocalata]

Is this really such a big thing as the papers make out? I quizzed friends with DC at boarding school and it really doesn't sound like there are many Russian children in their schools at all. I feel quite bad for any Russian children that are at the moment, it must be quite terrifying to be alone in a boarding school in another country, even if your parents are potentially money laundering and financially supporting an atrocious invasion.

The only take away I have from that article is that our political representatives are spectacularly dimwitted / lazy thinking. Why should charities be held to a higher standard than political parties that also took money from these men? Why was it ok for them to buy UK businesses and London property but not ok for them to send their children to school? We allowed them full advantage of our designer boutiques and Michelin starred restaurants and everything else in London that appeals to the rich, but the schools was a step too far?

For what it’s worth, I work in financial crime for a bank. As a bank we have huge teams dedicated to sanctions but even banks can’t see into the future and we could never have foreseen that some of these individuals would be sanctioned. I wouldn’t envy a school bursar who was forced uphold a higher standard than the financial institutions, with none of the resources.

@Marianix

Abramovich daughter was going to Garden House School in Chelsea London. It says a lot about the owner of the school. Not the children’s fault but highly unethical and questionable. Schools can’t pretend they don’t know where assets are coming from. This has been well documented for years for anyone who cared. It’s too easy to close our eyes, schools particularly, should be irreproachable.

and 2 of his daughters to G&L which doubled in size through very generous donations from its super rich parents for the immense expansion and upgrade it has been through that makes it unrecogisable from the local grammar school it once was. Still, given that he and other parents from countries with regimes that are against the Western ethos had been legitimised by desperate greed from international finance and the industries that service them - the schools were just taking a piece of the pie that no one was telling them not to?

This well balanced article about Russian children at school here shows exactly why the two tier system of eduction is bad for our society in UK - it is letting down British children by extending class issues (whilst at the same time making money from nations whose parents aren’t subject to the accent check that can mean you are in the club and acceptable to work in some elitist workplaces in UK.)
I am privately educated but boy did this article make me see how ridiculous the system is - that on one hand it can raise up foreign children and their parents away from their own class issues in their own countries whilst bashing down UK children who haven’t attended these types of schools.

I was so maddened by it I forgot to post the link
www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-nonsense-to-claim-our-private-schools-are-stuffed-with-oligarch-kids/amp

@Chocalata I would be wary that the writer of that article has dc in a school that would be advantaged by having oligarchs and wealthy Russians in their school

There was an article that I read recently that I'll have to search for as I can't remember who published it that said Eton gets about £850k PA in fees alone from Russians. That's before any donations.
Universities have also been allowing the money to flow in from the wrong sources and there have been a few eyebrow raising tales from LSE using an oligarchs dd as their poster girl.

Of course people who have done wrong by another country will have their whole families sanctioned unfortunately that's how the law should work even when it means dc are pulled from schools, but we're not talking any old schools are we, dc regularly get pulled out for all sorts of reasons including parents no longer being able to afford the fees so I personally wouldn't have a problem with people being pulled out of my dc school for money laundering reasons.

The problem is money laundering is often ignored, the schools and universities should be pulled up on their lack of due diligence. These institutions have also imo deliberately been left to their own devices in managing their due diligence.

Until recently many Chinese students were paying their entire university or school fees in cash, some things have changed but not enough. And even the parents don't always mind as when that new pool facility magically appears the year a wealthy family's dc starts at the school it benefits everyone, corruption really needs someone with pure intentions to weed it out and sort it. Those people are few and far between atm. Looking at the current government anyway.

I know that no private school thread is complete without somehow shoe horning Eton into it,but for some context Eton has around 1350 students,i believe 17 or so are Russian, only the bursar can know how much they pay in fees but lets say 850k for simplicity(It will be lower)in the great scheme of things that is chicken feed,Eton gives out over £8.5 million in financial aid every year..

Well my dc is in a prep with a few Russians that have thus far refused to comment on anything about the war, people are wary, if Eton is to be escaped from being commented on.

It's not so much the fees going, it's the extras these donate that are not easily available or necessarily recorded (and then the loss to the schools) that could create a problem. Eton was mentioned by me due to figures being made available in the press. Of course all schools should be be held accountable for any lack of solid working anti money laundering policies.

I'm quite sure other institutions are shuffling around uncomfortably in their seats to see if anyone notices what they've been up to. Hence my inclusion of universities who are also coming under scrutiny for exactly where they believed the full fees up front 'wealth' was coming from when all coming from one or two corners of the world.

No evidence of course but lets chuck in "extras..that are not easily available or necessarily recorded" and then move onto "lack of solid working anti money laundering policies" tin hat stuff..

@nolanscrack Article

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6e762d64-9100-11ec-9569-fea923928840?shareToken=e1acfc811666218628e96ceb7397d65c

Of course it's not limited to Eton (or Russians)

There was an article that I read recently that I'll have to search for as I can't remember who published it that said Eton gets about £850k PA in fees alone from Russians.

Fees at Eaton are about 45k a year, so that works out at about 20 Russian students. In a school of 1,400 pupils that is hardly significant.

Schools really aren’t the places where significant amounts of money are laundered. By contrast, RA loaned over a billion pounds to Chelsea. Imagine how many computer labs, libraries and swimming pools you could fund with that.

@karmakameleon but you'll agree no money laundering should take place at schools. They are not subject to much in the way of checks against money laundering. This will hopefully change now.

I think that people are being a bit simplistic and assuming that Russian citizenship equals money launderer. Twenty twenty hindsight is an amazing thing. If China had invaded had invaded Taiwan, I think we’d be having a very similar conversation but switching the nationalities. However I notice the conversation here and in the newspaper articles doesn’t look beyond the Russian nexus.

Schools should be wary of large donations but I think that it is unrealistic for schools to simply refuse entry to the children of all rich foreigners, most of whom will be legitimate. But ultimately, schools are not where the significant amount of money is laundered and that is why they are not subject to the same regulations as banks etc.

@karmakameleon
So should private schools (aka charities), not accept donations from parents then?
Summer Fields are currently very busy renaming buildings!!!!

Almost all charities take donations. Generally for larger ones they’d want to do some due diligence on whoever was providing the money and where it comes from. Mainly this is to avoid reputational damage rather than to preempt any government sanctions. It is unrealistic to expect a charity to be able to access the same information as the government or larger institutions and foresee where the next geopolitical crisis will occur and who is likely to be sanctioned as a result.

To give you an idea of just how volatile the Russian sanctions are at the moment, on Day 1 of the invasion one of our team asked our MLRO and Head of Sanctions who they thought may be targets of new sanctions. They vastly underestimated what governments would do and how quickly. Entities they thought would be sanctioned as a last resort were sanctioned within days. Even as a bank with significant resource dedicated to this, we now have clients that are subject to sanctions. Given that we use our resources and expertise to try and avoid these situations, I struggle to see how we realistically would expect a school bursar to be able to foresee this scenario and preempt it.

@karmakameleon
So going forward so you think a blanket ban on donations would help schools with this minefield.
What do parents expect in return for these donations anyway?

One public school I know about will be offering some bursary places to displaced Ukrainian students. They have both Russian and Ukrainian students already there.

So going forward so you think a blanket ban on donations would help schools with this minefield.

No, I don’t think that would help anyone. At our school (and many others) parents contribute significantly to the bursary fund; should that be banned? I don’t think so. That would be bad for the school, the existing pupils (both fee paying and bursary students) and wider society.

But I do think we should be realistic as to what due diligence we expect the schools to do. Yes, they should ask who the benefactor is when significant contributions are made and where the money is coming from / how it was made. But can expect them to spot the crooks when governments and financial institutions can’t or don’t want to? I don’t think that’s reasonable at all.

Just as an example, the only oligarch most people in the UK would have been able to name a month ago was Roman Abramovich. A month ago he was fully integrated into British society. When he bought Chelsea I was genuinely surprised that anyone wanted to touch him with a barge pole but they did and he bought his way in. If he (or Chelsea FC) wanted to fund a new sports hall for a school, who really would have turned him down? And yet now, that money is tainted. The money didn’t suddenly become dirty in February 2022, but everyone chose to overlook how he made it until then. Why should a school know better when the problem is societal?

What do parents expect in return for these donations anyway?

This is the far more important question. I wouldn’t want to send my children to a school where children were favoured based on parental donations and schools that take money with stings attached are likely to do themselves real reputational damage.

@karmakameleon
So would you recommend donations ONLY for bursary funds - would that put an end to the distasteful facilities race that 93% of the UK’s children are kept away from using?

@CrotchetyQuaver that sounds laudable.

[quote Chocalata]@karmakameleon
So would you recommend donations ONLY for bursary funds - would that put an end to the distasteful facilities race that 93% of the UK’s children are kept away from using?[/quote]
This sounds to me like you have an issue with private schools rather than the donations. Perfectly reasonable but not the subject of the thread.

A couple of years ago I visited a state primary in Chelsea with amazing facilities, especially given its central London location. The facilities had been sponsored by John Lewis. I have no issues with that, assume you don’t either?

Now, what if Chelsea FC had offered to pay? Would you have raised an eyebrow if you’d been the head of that school? Would you have thought that you don’t want the association with Roman Abramovich and turned the money down? I doubt it.

Another thought. Originally the donations were not the focus of this thread. The original issue was that the children of foreign money launderers were at schools in the UK (domestic criminals seem to be ok). Stopping donations doesn’t stop these children going to the schools, as you only need to pay the fees to attend. Making schools implement the same checks as banks, as well as being unrealistic, wouldn’t even stop this. See RA/Chelsea example above who was banked in the UK until a few days ago.

@karmakameleon
I was privately educated at one of the very well known boarding schools that take part in the 'facilities race' now.
I just find it icky. Especially as there are so many more children in UK that should benefit from these sort of facilities and instead they are being built by those with potentially dubious incomes.
Not against the sector in general - I am a realist.

@karmakameleon
Agree about domestic criminals BTW. There was a huge scandal at my boarding school about one parent who ended up escaping jail by fleeing to Australia. It isn't just Russian oligarchs who are using dodgy money to pay fees you are right.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/news/18235776/private-school-begs-russians-fees/amp/

No, they all should be sent home, it's scandalous that someone's father can openly broadcast about nuking OUR country, can have their children here in higher education. Now we're even talking about civilians in UK fighting against Russia, well before that happens don't you think sending them home would be a good start? There MUST be repercussions for what that country has done, they must be sitting there laughing at us, they would do much, much worse to us in a heartbeat which they've made abundantly clear! Get them out and replace them with our own that could do with a bloody place in university!