Thread 2: VAT on school Fees- High court challenge

[EHCPerhaps]

Following on from thread 1
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5160565-vat-on-school-fees-high-court-challenge

Background to legal challenge (not yet a case):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13824931/amp/Single-mother-autistic-child-launches-High-Court-challenge-Labours-private-schools-VAT-raid-claiming-violates-daughters-right-education.html

Sorry to begin a new thread, OP, but your thread filled up very quickly!

If private schools were subsidised by the state then more people going to private school would cost the state more.

That's how state subsidies works. The state pays part of the cost. Subsidies cost the state money, not save them money.

But nobody disputes that if people give up this 'subsidy' and move to state schools, it will cost the state more rather than less.

In fact, if 10% give up this 'subsidy', then even the extra money coming from private school parents (not from the state) won't cover the extra state cost.

It's not a subsidy.

Hi everyone! Can't we ask all the private schools to convert themselves into either state schools or grant subsidised schools? The only difference is they will have to take up more students. In this way, all tax payers are entitled to send their kids to free education which is the law? I don't think the government can refuse this as long as they have achieved the requirements?

Why would they do this?

What would the private schools be trying to achieve?

Looking at the charitable aims of SPGS (not my DD's school, just an example) :

"Provision of education to girls aged 11-18 by running an academically selective school offering a stimulating and ambitious programme of study with a rich and diverse extra-curricular programme. Bursaries enable a wide range of girls to take advantage of this exceptional education."

How would dissolving all the assets provided by donors for that specific aim and just handing them over to the government to do what they like with actually achieve that aim?

It's like suggesting that the National Trust should just hand over all their properties to the government to turn into public parks. Lovely idea, until you actually think about it.

The National Trust's aim is to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest"

Part of how they do that is to charge entrance to their properties so that they have the funds to maintain them. They're also committed to keeping them permanently, not selling/transforming them when other priorities come along - like the government eventually would (grey belt?!).

Just because a charity's assets aren't being handed out for free to everyone, doesn't mean that charitable aims aren't being met.

The reason the National Trust actually exists is because the government of the time was doing nothing of the sort!

Private donors and philanthropists set it up.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_Places_Scheme of course the government had the option of simply re-instating this scheme...

Since Dadjoke is a 45% rate tax payer they could clearly buy alternative forms of privilege. In my view, it's people like them who ought to be putting their hand in their pocket too.

Is this true?

Surely it is more likely that they form a much larger proportion because the vast majority of private school children will carry on to sixth form, whereas a lot of state educated children won't.

So their proportion is higher but not the number.

Looking at the ISC data there are around 55,000 15 year olds in private education, and around 45,000 17 year olds.

This does not suggest there is a mass influx to private from the state sector, rather the other way round.

Statistics can be tricky.

@remotecontrolowls
I take your point. In 2022/2023, there were 51,816 pupils in Year 11 in private school and then in 2023/2024 there were only 46,735 in Year 12.
I saw on the Schoolsmith website that he ISC also reports that around 25% of pupils are “new to their school” in Year 12. Their informed guess is that 15-20% points of that 25% is churn between independent schools. They suggest this leaves 5-10% points or 2,000 to 4,000 pupils as the net migration from state to independent education.
I still hold that some parents (less wealthy ones who are more affected by the VAT rise) will only use private school education for a short time and now may be priced out. The ISC report shows a jump in the number of pupils using private school between Year 9 and Year 11. The IFS doesn't consider this when they say parents have been able to deal with inflationary rises and so a 20% VAT rise won't make a difference. Parents who are just about affording private school for a few years, won't be able to afford it at all now.

Also local authorities are going to have to take over the SEN funding that families with SEN kids in private schools at the moment are totally absorbing themselves. It’s a very expensive move to make for the public purse- added support in mainstream, special schools, transport, all much much more expensive than parents who just about have the ability to pay and kids who need smaller class sizes staying in private school.

Added support jn mainstream is an issue.

But the government have said this won't affect children with an EHCP or the children the government is funding.

How many children are there in private school without an EHCP who would require a special school and transport?

Labour will be busy rowing back from their non-dom and WFA policies over the next two months so it will be December before a delay to the implementation of the education tax is announced. I suspect they will want to prolong the uncertainty and anxiety for children and parents as long as they can given the incomprehensible venom towards ‘the 7%’, so the policy won’t be fully dropped for some time, but they won’t fight ECHR legal challenges and it will have to be dropped.

I’d love this to be the case but I’m not sure. Their policies are turning out to be duds and they might want just to hold up one even if it is damaging

Given Starmer’s speech lauding the ECHR when they first took office, I wouldn’t have thought they’d risk it ruling against them (which it clearly will if it gets that far). Saying that, Labour seem pretty detached from reality at the moment.

I fail to see how the ECHR would rule against them if children with EHCPs are exempt, and there is space in state school.

Everyone has the right to an education, not their preferred education.

Because parents do have the right to their preferred education, or at least for the state to respect (and not prohibit) their preferred education under ECHR: ‘to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions’.

Yes, but how does charging VAT affect that.

I don't have access to that education for my children because I can't afford the fees.

I could if they were 20% cheaper but they're not.

All this policy does is move the line on a system that you already buy into, ethically and literally.

Because the policy is limiting education choice by design. Labour could argue it is for financial reasons rather than ideological, but obviously that will not hold up to any scrutiny. There is a reason why education tax is banned under EU articles. Labour won’t risk the embarrassment, it was just an election gimmick to get the woe is me/envy spite vote that probably was never meant to even get this far.

Really hope you’re right! Sounds plausible though.

Children with EHCPs are NOT exempt - just those who have their fees paid by the LA.

Most children with EHCPs are in state schools.¹1

They are if it's deemed that their needs couldn't be met in the state sector.

If they can, but private is better, then that's not the same thing at all.

sorry no If they can, but private is better, then that's not the same thing at all.

The choice I was given after a mainstream state school said it could not meet my child’s needs was to wait for a year or two or more for the state system to find an appropriate place for my child. On top of months out of school already and in the face of unbelievable stress and trauma to my child already. Would anyone else want their kids out of school for that long? How would your boss feel about that? This SEN crisis situation is the direct consequence of 14 years of austerity and savage Tory cuts to local authorities and Labour are doing fuck all about that, which is infuriating.

So if you don’t want your kids out of school for an open ended amount of time, the ‘choice’ is private, if you can scrape up any money and ask your family to help to avoid that situation, also in hopes not to lose your job because you need to get your child into school. You might in desperation try to look for a private school with smaller classes that you can afford.

Private schools turn out to be full of kids with SEN and no EHCPs whose parents and grandparents are paying the fees and saving the taxpayer thousands each year.

It’s very gaslighty the number of posters (and the government) who don’t want to listen to SEN parents and who keep asserting that the law allows EHCPs and that SEN kids or kids with EHCPs are protected from this policy.

They’re not! Getting a funded private school place via EHCP is a massive legal fight and the financial bar is extremely high. The waiting list to even get assessed for a EHCP is (illegally) up to six months in my area. The law says it should be six weeks. There aren’t enough LA educational psychologists.

There needs to be clear understanding that local authorities break the law around assessing and maintaining EHCPs all the time All up and down the country, every day of a the week. This is not tangential to the VAT increase debate, because it affects loads of families and kids.

The VAT increase is also going to affect alternative schools like Steiner etc which take even more loads of SEN kids and don’t attract wealthy families according to my experience. Steiner etc fees are about 30% cheaper than conventional private schools.

It’s so pathetic to see grown adults being happy about sticking it to kids, who will be forced to change school. The SEN kids from private schools returning to the state sector will not have their needs met (again). We already know that. That has a knock on effect on the kids with SEN already in state schools too lessening the resources for them.

It’s unbelievable to me that no funding from this new VAT policy has been ring fenced for funding SEN in the state system. What do they think is going to happen to these kids? What happens if more parents are forced to give up work if their kids can’t go to school?

@Mrsbabbecho but we're not in the EU anymore.

I really wish we were but we're not. So it's irrelevant what EU law is, taking back control and all that.

It's a bit rich that The Telegraph et al, who took a sledgehammer to the country for ideological reasons without a thought for the consequences for every day people and businesses, are now hoping Europe will miraculously come to the rescue.

@EHCPerhaps all of those are problems that need fixing. And you shouldn't have to do that to get the education your child needs.

But there are thousands of children struggling in that system who don't have parents or grandparents to foot the bill, and can't make those choices.

I don't take delight in children suffering at all, but I find it incredibly hypocritical that the state system, camhs and every thing else has been hammered for over a decade, and people still voted the fuckers because they could just buy their way out. It hasn't been a political issue because noone cared.

Now The Telegraph gives a shit.

It's only now that children with SEN are being used as some sort of human shield by wealthy families trying to save themselves some cash.

That I find offensive.