Will VAT on private school fees lead to a partial collapse of the sector?

[mids2019]

Will VAT on school fees coupled with cost of living drive a lot of parents from the private sector or will the majority absorb the cost? Are the numbers that potentially end up in the public sector going to offset any gains to the treasury through VAT?

Labour are working at about 4-5% transfer rate to the public sector but is this an underestimate?

Typo

I feel for dc who will have to move. Not mine tg

We’re all good

lol

If you think not search posts it makes no odds to me 🤷‍♀️

Starmer’s policy is hitting some dc hard and thankfully not mine, I get why people will be stressed though

You can understand why I’m confused though?!

The current governments policies have hit dc very hard too so I understand why some want change.

Bloody hell, just realised I’m missing Eurovision!

Well, if you look at regional population, London plus the South East region is 18million people. That doesn’t capture the whole of the commuter belt, as the north and eastern portions fall under East of England, which would add on another 6 million. Quite a respectable percentage of the 55m population of England (44%).

But more to the point, London and counties in the south east of England (geographically) apparently have the highest number of privately educated pupils. This link says Surrey, Hertfordshire, Kent, Berkshire and Hampshire are the top five counties for privately educated pupils. https://ie-today.co.uk/dashboard2/news/home-counties-most-at-risk-from-labours-private-school-policies-analysis-suggests/

I can’t comment on other regions of England but if London and the South East is an indicator, I don’t see private education collapsing any day soon.

Obviously I am sorry for anyone in the world who is suffering! But a majority of SEN students are not at private schools and I feel more sorry for those pupils! Don’t pretend that this is primarily a SEN issue it clearly isn’t. It is an issue for private school pupils, the majority of whom are wealthy and without SEN. Parents have had years to make savings if they want to keep paying for luxuries!

Also, your “claiming to be a teacher” is arguing in poor faith. I am a teacher. You have no reason to doubt this.

Yes, I talked about those break/end of phase points.

As for where the children will go whose parents feel they can no longer afford or justify the cost of private schools, they will go to the same places as the children whose parents have been priced out by above-inflation fee rises over many years, the children whose parents weren't willing to borrow hugely against their property wealth, and the children whose parents could never have afforded it in a million years. Fortunately the state sector will be in a better position to take more children in terms of emerging places than for quite some time.

I can understand why the typo was confusing but it really was just a typo

If you look at other posts you’ll see it’s the case

No, of course the majority of private or state kids don’t have SEN - but…if even a percentage do, labour are risking more ‘ghost children’ being created, those discouraged from going to school entirely, and they already have plenty of those, who often turn into anxious adults that don’t work.

maybe their chat about EHCPs is starting to understand this - the stats on absentees and young adults not leaving the house are bad enough post pandemic.

But isn’t it 1/3 of kids now needing some sort of additional support?

https://www.togetherscotland.org.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/01/a-third-of-pupils-now-identified-with-additional-support-needs/

of course, I wish labour were doing more to tackle these issues, primarily. This VAT is a headline grabber that will make life worse for a few but it doesn’t address the real crises.

I've gone into more detail on this several times upthread. For the admissions system to work it needs wholesale reform. Faith admissions are a huge distorter than often exacerbate house price selective admissions. Lack of a common standard in admissions creates weird distortions. Feeder schools tend to gatekeep privilege and can create similar issues to faith admissions. Having ten schools in an area each with different admissions arrangements and then a whole other regime in a neighbouring borough also creates distortions.

I see the benefit in children attending fairly local schools both for primary and secondary so I don't favour totally open lotteries. Priority catchments that change over time with population change - with socioeconomic banding and potentially random allocation of priority catchment within those bands (followed by outside catchment within those bands) are what I think I favour though I am very open to evidence of other systems that might work better and achieve a decent socioeconomic mix and don't practise social selection by the back door - as currently all forms of selection (whether house price, faith or any other kind of selection) currently do.

Grammars are obviously a whole other category that I'd prefer to see abolished but failing that they need socioeconomic banding as a minimum.

I did not say that this was a majority SEN issue. I said that your blithe assertion that children priced out could simply move to a good state school ignored the plight of kids with SN in the sector and displayed ableist privilege. Which it did. And you are still doing it.
very disappointing in an educator, which is what you say you are.

Here again, the blithe assertion that the state will simply absorb these children, wholly ignoring the position of kids with SN.
i am truly sick of being treated as though we and our kids don’t exist.

Well I can afford it by squeezing even more but why I would pay for an envy tax? We have so much burden already from all sides.

I also quite like the idea of marginal ballots - where a certain % of a school's places are reserved for those who didn't get their first choice school under primary admissions criteria, or are entirely random.

I know. I understand

Thank you. For the left, our children only exist as sticks to beat the Tories with. They aren’t people to them and they will quite happily ignore them when they aren’t convenient.

No, I was asked very simply where the kids would go.

The question wasn't whether it would be in their best interests, or whether the school places available would be of the same quality or whether the right support would even be available.

I was asked a very simple question of where the kids would go, and the answer is very simply the same place as the children whose parents do not have the means to access a private alternative.

I can completely understand that this is a very stressful situation and I agree that in many schools SEN support is nowhere near what children need, particularly after the long and painful impacts of austerity on school budgets. Hopefully some of the windfall from dropping pupil numbers is spent on improving that situation as rapidly as possible, though it will be interesting to see how Labour go about reforming the Treasury.

Edited because I mistakenly thought you were the person whose post I had originally replied to - apologies for that.

I didn’t ask where kids would go. That was another poster. My point has been that you and others either ignore, or simply aren’t bothered by, the difficulties of trying to locate suitable alternative provision for kids with SN.
im afraid the airy hand waving about how it will get all better under Labour screams ableist privilege.

family member teaches at a big private
boarding school, it is generally predicted that more of the kids will be international students. but the school presumably will stop offering the (amazing) facilities to the local community and state schools unless paid for.

Most food products like Bread don’t have VAT added. Items that are considered not necessary like chocolate or alcohol does.

Thats why some companies have had arguments with the government about what exact type of item or food needs to have VAT on it. A famous one was Jaffa cakes! Cakes didn’t have VAT but biscuits do. And HMRC said it was a biscuit…!

Yes, I realised my error and apologised for it at the end of my post.

I don't know that it will all get better under Labour. I bloody hope it does and will be pushing hard for change. I'm not actually a Labour voter and haven't really been pushing this policy, though I'll admit some of the nonsense around the "bursting at the seams" narrative pushes my buttons as it's so at odds with facts, and the Times front page this morning was pretty laughable, as are many of the assertions that come with this debate, which is why I find these threads hard to ignore.

I know there are many for whom this policy will be very stressful, and I sympathise. I know very many parents with kids at private schools, some of whom can easily afford it and others who can't.

But I do think the longer-term public policy solution should be a rapid and large scale restoration and enhancement of SEN support in the state sector as a day 1 priority rather than continuing a situation that pushes the minority parents who can just about afford it into the private sector. So if this policy does raise money I bloody hope that's where it goes. Which I recognise is of no immediate help to those parents in your situation.

I went to a Direct Grant school at the time when it was abolished.

I suspect that there may well be the same arrangements if VAT is imposed, ie that VAT will only apply to 'new entrants' and existing pupils will be unaffected

I am very concerned for our junior school, where we have seen enrolment drop substantially over the last couple of years. People already committed will try to hold on for as long as they can, or at least until a natural transition, but loads of people are evidently second guessing whether to start at all. senior school is probably safer, as strong reputation and boarding means they have a more diverse customer base.

I agree with others that while a majority of parents will suck it up (albeit with help of some creative accounting from schools), but I see at least 10% reduction due to leavers or never starters. We know a couple of families who have preemptively left due to concerns. The policy won’t be income net positive however it is written, which begs the question of why bother? It really doesn’t take the majority leaving for the policy to become more costly than the current status quo.