The councils need to find spaces for all children!!

[HooverIsAlwaysBroken]

https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/surrey-runs-out-of-state-school-places-for-private-pupils-as-vat-raid-bites/?amp

I am relieved to see that the Surrey is also looking at options to expand class sizes and use transportation to take children to other areas. They really need to get their act together quickly.

all children has a right to state education.

All of the growth was between 2003 and 2009/10. Since then it fell and then increased again back to the same level as 2009/10. Cuts during the Coalition and May governments have essentially been reversed but with little resilience left in schools where significant cuts had to ve made and post-covid a greater level of need particularly in KS1 and EYFS

Increasing the state burden is counter rational

Hence other countries doing the opposite to the U.K., and us now being the outlier.

That's the problem with Labour's policies. Eg they go for growth and then actively shrink the private sector

'UK companies are cutting employee numbers at the fastest rate since the pandemic'

Labour know this is bad, one would hope anyway

More spending in education is great.

We need the GDP to fund it.

It's fallen per person in real terms.

It’s grown overall due to immigration but cutting spending on education after 2010 was a choice, other choices could have been made.

Latest data
Estimates for payrolled employees in the UK increased by 24,000 (0.1%) between September and October 2024, and rose by 140,000 (0.5%) between October 2023 and October 2024 - Labour Force survey

Where did you get your numbers from? the LFS is considered highly reliable, 24k extra in just a month is very good and around double that of the previous 12months.

Anecdotal doom and gloom stories since the budget, are mostly spun by the Tories, understandable but unreliable.

Only in Surrey! 😂

It will be cheaper for the Council to pay the VAT for some children than to have to find places and pay for transport etc., just saying. I am wondering whether it would be legal for the Council to fund the VAT for some children?

I know Labour will try to deflect from any economic indicators as they are bad

The pp who want to read up can look at the S&P figures

Covered in the FT also

The Labour Budget was not good. Hitting smaller businesses, our own food supply via farmer, our own energy supply via North Sea oil, issues with policing now too and navy disgruntled as well. Looks like they hate our own.

Meanwhile, they did not tax British American Tobacco more and the share price has gone up substantially! Tobacco and vapes before the education of children too. They are not very clever, it seems. Nor very kind either.

The budget is showing up now in the private sector contraction and decrease in job vacancies

Most don't really follow what that means, especially if the gov are pumping out headlines to cover it, but Labour have lost their lead and it will filter through to the public in every day impact. So I can see it getting worse for them

It’s impossible. They’d have a stream of requests from other people to fund their children’s education. Councils can’t start de facto bursary funds for private education.

It’s perfectly normal for school places to expand and contract depending on demand and in KS2 upwards easier than in younger years. There’s also substantial churn in schools as children move about. Councils are used to finding places

What economic figures? i ve shown the Labour Force Survey - employment up in October.
The reality is that the UK has been at or around 0% growth for many years, a year ago, we were in danger of going into recession following months of negative GDP growth - what was the cause of that? Reeves' yet to be announced budget???

The bottom line is no one wants to pay more tax but thats the mess we are in, we have no money and very little means to raise tax take.

It was highly irresponsible for Hunt to cut NI by 4pts, without funding it, in our economic situation.

That graph is per-student spend, so the rise is not due to immigration. Education spending has risen per student in real terms (ie even allowing for inflation).

Yes, it's a choice. GDP tanked after the 2008 crisis, and Blair kept increasing the education spending. We all saw it as an investmentvin the future.

BUT actually, Tony Blair's huge cash injection in the early 2000s - to create a more-educated workforce - clearly hasn't actually increased our GDP 20 years later.

Of course, education is about citizen wellbeing as well as an investment for the future - it's fine to say we want to prioritise it over other government spending. BUT given the numerical evidence, we can't pretend that Blair's spending was an investment in GDP growth. We can still choose that spending, but you can't keep increasing it with an airy 'we'll get the money back later'. We won't. So to be sustainable, it has to fit into the GDP we have.

Here's an interesting graph of government spending across each department as a proportion of GDP (https://www.icaew.com/insights/insights-specials/the-future-of-tax-and-public-spending/graphic-70-years-of-public-spending)

Look at the trajectory of Blair's cash injections - in various departments - between 2003 and 2010 as a proportion of GDP!!

Choice is right. Our GDP has not risen. You want more Education spending? What do you want to cut to balance that?

("other people's standard of living, by increasing tax take" isn't an option. Not sustainably. )

The bottom line is that with tax it is always easy to spend other people's money

Remember - that graph is as a proportion of GDP.

It should be flat, not rising.

Labour contracting the private sector will hit public sector funding

Contraction three consecutive months now.

I put the info in a pp already

'Private sector employment in December fell more than during any month since January 2021, according to the S&P Global flash UK purchasing managers’ employment index.
In the third consecutive month of contraction, the index fell to 45.8, down from 48.9 in November. It was far below the key 50 mark and the lowest since 2009 if the pandemic is excluded.'

I wasn’t talking about the graph and Tony Blair wasn’t in office after the 2008 financial crisis.

I don’t particularly object to the VAT. Yes when the invoice lands it will be a bit depressing but we can afford it (as can many may other independent school parents).

Well not really if services are being invested in rather than merely maintained. The key would have been useful

“It’s perfectly normal for school places to expand and contract depending on demand and in KS2 upwards easier than in younger years. There’s also substantial churn in schools as children move about. Councils are used to finding places.”

Surrey has 1 in 5 kids in private schools, over 40000. If let’s say as much of 10 per cent year 9s were to leave it would not be “normal” whatsoever. It would be wholly unprecedented. And would call for unprecedented action too.

I don’t particularly object to the VAT. Yes when the invoice lands it will be a bit depressing but we can afford it

It's good you're happy about paying the tax. It won't be an issue if you're very wealthy of course but that still doesn't make it a good policy if the overall impact is damaging

Plus just generally supporting Labour when their budget shrinks the private sector doesn't help people either

4000 children aren’t going to leave. Surrey is pretty comfortably off.

There is a chicken little quality to these threads.

Edited for maths!

The VAT should never have applied to years 9-11. There aren’t the places and those kids cannot move schools. Nor should it ever have been implemented part way through a school year. Nor is the exemption for SEND wide enough. Due to these factors, this policy will be a huge failure.

Investment suggests a return in the future. You'll need to specify what that return is.

They didn't put a key on - that's why I included a link to the page. If you go to the original page and hover on a line you get more info.

Lime green at the top is health
Orange is pensions
Purple is welfare
Mint green is education.
Blue at the bottom is defense

I'm pleased you can afford it, we can't as it breaches our tipping point for affordability.

There is a chicken little quality to these threads.

I'd say a head in the sand quality from Labour.

Those figures in pp are going down no matter how much they are ignored