20% vat on fees

[namechangedforthisone35]

IF Labour get in and IF the 20% does get added to fees, how many private school pupils will be moved to state? I have three kids (one not school aged yet) and in private school. One of many reasons because I didn't want them in a class of 30. I couldn't afford the vat increase so would have to move them but then that class of 30 becomes, what, 40?! In an already strained and unresourced system?!

Wwyd?

Y - I'd have to move kids to state
N - I'll pay the vat

This thread has changed a bit. Early on it was all about the average earning people scraping together pennies to pay for private schools. Now it's, we all have enough money to buy our way into any area we like and stop you normal people getting into the state schools you want to. Odd. Good to see the 'working so bloody much harder than the rest of you' comments continuing though.

Private school kids being moved to state grammars at secondary is nothing new. I'm not convinced that's a massive concern with regard to the VAT issue to be honest.

The schools that are owned by churches were built by and run by the church long before the state decided that universal state-funded education was a thing.

Our local CofE secondary school opened in the 1960s. I think universal state-funded education was pretty well established by then.

@jgw1 @SabrinaThwaite I absolutely think that faith schools should not be allowed. I do not think the state should fund any school which can openly discriminate based on religion. The fact remains though that faith schools are often better performing and parents will do anything to get their children into them.

What I don’t understand is the uproar about private school parents paying VAT (when they are not using the state system), and yet people seem perfectly happy for the state to fund children at the cost of thousands of pounds a year to go to a school which openly discriminates based on religion. It’s one reason we chose private. The only other half decent school is a faith school.

Making a law to intentionally deprive people or organisations of their assets, or to overrule the charitable gifts of people who gave for a specific purpose to force them to be used for another purpose, would not be the act of a democratic government.

You wouldn't think that making a law to deliberately try and circumvent a Supreme Court ruling would be the act of a democratic government, but here we are.

Your missing the point that many privates will be put out of business. There won't be a school to go to.

Possibly over time, but not overnight, and by no means all of them.

In theory, the idea is that Labour would put additional funding into state schools, to presumably reduce class sizes and employ more teachers. So, instead of one class of 30, perhaps they'd move to 2 classes of 20 in your model.

Whilst I'm not saying this is definitely what would happen in reality, that's surely the theory behind the idea?

Although there is a shortage of teachers nationally a) presumably some of the teachers in private would move to state, and b) if working conditions in schools improved, then the hope would be that some of the thousands of teachers who've left teaching before retirement would return to work, and this would help accommodate additional students.

Last time Labour were in power, there was also a lot of funding for schools to build new buildings (unlike now when there's not even funding to replace those that are unsafe), which would help create the additional space for these classes.

I'm not saying it would all work perfectly- it probably wouldn't- but part of the policy is that there would be additional funding for state schools which would help the state system absorb additional students.

Also, the flip side to this is that many private schools have had fee increases of 10%+ in recent years. This is mainly due to increased staffing costs (in order to attract good staff in some subject areas, private schools have to at least match state sector pay + stay in the TPS etc) and increased energy costs. There are already people who can't afford these increases and are moving to state schools- I teach quite a few students who've moved to state for sixth form, for example (obviously not all finances related!).

However, state schools at the moment are getting no increased funding to accommodate these students. And whilst I would imagine fee rises this year may not be quite as big, I don't think they will be small either in most schools. If people are stretched to the limit at the moment, there's no reason to think they'd be able to fund the next 5+ years of private education anyway.

My school increased by 10% for the current school year. They have to say around April what the fees will be in sep and obviously the inflationary environment in April 2022 was very different.

This followed a few years of 5% and a year of 0% (covid) rises so there was some catching up to do, in some ways.

The Labour Party have already said that the funds raised from this policy will pay for 6,500 new teachers and mental health support for students. There are currently almost 470,000 full time equivalent teachers, and 280,000 teaching assistants in the state system. The proposed increase in the number will have hardly any effect, and that’s assuming they can even recruit new teachers.

This thread has changed a bit. Early on it was all about the average earning people scraping together pennies to pay for private schools. Now it's, we all have enough money to buy our way into any area we like and stop you normal people getting into the state schools you want to. Odd. Good to see the 'working so bloody much harder than the rest of you' comments continuing though.

Indeed! Also important that although all these parents have ‘money to burn’ they are taking a principled stance against VAT on fees.

And the Admissions Code is irrelevant as they can move where they want, when they want at the drop of a hat to make sure their little tiger cub gets into the super selective grammar they didn’t get into at 11.

Or they could simply be full of shite

House prices do impact state 🤷‍♂️

Particularly near an oversubscribed decent state school

In areas where grammar schools remain, presumably private secondary schools are for the kids of rich parents who weren't clever enough to go to grammar school?

Not necessarily.

Grammar schools tend to get less funding, so while they may offer selective academic education they rarely can compete with a private school on the extra curricular offer or extensive playing fields, theatres etc.

Plenty of children sit for the selective private schools and not the grammar because the parents are after the academics AND the frills.

There are also non-selective private schools where you probably find a fairly big cohort of children who are there due to SEN who would struggle in large classes or a huge comprehensive school.

Those parents have saved the state a considerable sum by taking their children out of the equation by paying privately.

In areas where grammar schools remain, presumably private secondary schools are for the kids of rich parents who weren't clever enough to go to grammar school?

They definitely are around here.

It quite frequently happens on MN that posters are weighing up a selective private
and a grammar place.

They also hold private offers (and pay deposits) waiting for National Offer day and for the grammars to churn through any waiting lists. It’s one of the key reasons for private waiting lists to move.

Here in Japan, several British schools appear to have opened or are opening "chains" which are targeting the wealthy Chinese who are moving to Japan from China and Hong Kong to escape Xi Jinping and his ilk. As I understand, chain branches like this are a growing business, and it's clear that the bigger private schools are looking to diversify their revenue streams.

Some of the smaller private schools will go to the wall, though, mainly the ones serving young children.

Yes, last time Labour was in power it did build new schools and buildings…using PFI. I very much doubt you’d find any Head Teacher on here extolling the virtues of those schemes- the very reason a lot of schools cannot afford to run as they should. The financiers and beneficiaries of those deals however would absolutely love to see Labour back in power again so they can rinse and repeat.

You are correct the reason that schools keep having to cut their spending is nothing to do with year on year funding cuts for the last 13 years, coupled with increased essential spending- see for example the 40% increase in TPS costs in 2019 and the upcoming 27% increase in April, which are effectively a tax on state schools.

I doubt PFI will happen again as much as the mark up was extortionate even investors went off it in the end and politicians realised it was poor value

We still owe billions though and if you look at coverage at the time plenty talking about how bad it was for schools caught in contracts

And heating costs (not protected by the price cap)…
And lack of proper investment in buildings that mean costly interim repairs have to be made to keep the building ticking over but don’t actually properly solve problems.
And stepping in as other support for disadvantaged children and their families is withdrawn or made increasingly hard to access but with no funding to do so.
And then of course they may be full of RAAC and in danger of falling down!

“This thread has changed a bit. Early on it was all about the average earning people scraping together pennies to pay for private schools. Now it's, we all have enough money to buy our way into any area we like and stop you normal people getting into the state schools you want to. Odd. Good to see the 'working so bloody much harder than the rest of you' comments continuing though.

Indeed! Also important that although all these parents have ‘money to burn’ they are taking a principled stance against VAT on fees.

And the Admissions Code is irrelevant as they can move where they want, when they want at the drop of a hat to make sure their little tiger cub gets into the super selective grammar they didn’t get into at 11.

Or they could simply be full of shite”

If you were referring to me and my 4 DC. We live in London and the world is their oyster. They are trilingual and have several passports and play instruments to a high level too and passed 11 plus for superselective grammar school at the usual entry point. They also went to an outstanding church school. They have the option to go to uni abroad for free pretty much too which we are now weighing up for the younger two. It is not just about money but giving them a new experience.

Church school had a lot of movement in KS2, allowing certain families in. What do you think “practising Christian” means that the priest signs off? They will follow guidelines, of course, but there is some subjectivity. There is a ton of movement in schools in London and high achieving DCs have a lot of options, whether you personally like it or not. If public transport is there, that is the reality. Definitions/rules etc need to be applied in the “spirit” of the law. As another poster pointed out, we were so surprised just by how many state schools we potentially qualified for - grammars, lottery places, aptitude tests, church schools etc.

And yes, my DC could have gone to top private schools had we wanted them too, probably any of them. Because high IQ and multiple Grade 8s tends to get you in. We could have paid for it, had we wanted to.

Where I work most people’s children fall in to the same category as us. So I am merely commenting on people like us and what our options are. If we are told what to think and what we are allowed to do too much by any Government we will leave. Because we can easily get jobs elsewhere anyway. What attracted us to stay in England was the free thinking, liberal way of life and diversity and choice.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/

And at this juncture it is also important to remind people who pays the 60% of tax the country so direly needs. Top 1% pay 29%, 90th-99th percentile another 31.3% and income tax is most of your revenue at 249bn.

So I strongly suggest the green-eyed monster leaves the room before the poor suffer even more. Because in reality you cannot mess with the top earners and direct foreign investment more than you already have. Attacking private schools that the vast majority don’t care about is not worth it because the potential downside is too great. And the whole non dom - again, who actually cares.

At this point, I would also like to point out that no, I do not vote Tory. It is basic common sense. I will still vote Labour, but this VAT policy is a massive own goal, it is damn stupid.