Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 3

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Starting a third thread to discuss impact of VAT on private school fees, as the topic looks likely to run (and run). Though probably best to finish off the second thread before posting here, thx.

@user149799568But they don’t. All the schools mentioned list several reasons for their closure, including VAT. It’s posters on here who focus on VAT only.

How in the world does that make sense? Vat isn’t paid by schools, but by parents. Schools are affected when parents can no longer pay and rolls fall. Falling rolls is the main way schools are impacted by VAT!!

Because VAT was a policy choice introduced with minimal notice or consultation , which could have been avoided. Things like falling birth rate or a global inflation crisis were not things the government or schools have much control over.

It is really for the judge in the judicial review to decide based on facts. If the figures already show accelerated closures during a school year that sounds like there is causation.

And @CurlewKate @cantkeepawayforever to my mind vat doesn’t need to be the main reason for financial difficulty to be attributable- it just needs to have been the tipping point.

private schools have had a rough few years, especially small primaries. I know many were looking at rebuilding rolls following covid / col - vat is really just kicking the sector while they were down

I suppose I come to this from a state perspective- in which schools open, schools close, schools federate, schools add capacity or dwindle to mixed age classes in response to local supply and demand pressures.

Small schools with falling rolls do close, if they are no longer filling a role in the overall educational ecosystem, and this is sad for their pupils but those pupils continue to be educated elsewhere, and the national teacher shortage is such that few need be unemployed for long.

I completely appreciate that in the short term, the struggle and closure of a school is sad, and that changes are almost always unwelcome. But viewed in a wider ‘ecosystem’ way, my question is to what extent those schools were providing an education of such unique quality and character that they are irreplaceable and their closure should be prevented? Those schools which have closed that I have had sone knowledge of have not, from an outside perspective, offered things that are not available elsewhere in a reasonable radius either in state or in another private.

its that very transactional view of education that brought us to the private sector to begin with.

Choosing to focus at an ‘ecosystem’ level allows you to ignore the interests and needs of individuals. Yes, schools open and close all the time, but not due to poorly conceived and maliciously implemented government policy.

A school, like one of the ones mentioned on here, that is half full is not going to be pushed over the edge by a couple of parents withdrawing because of VAT. Frankly, if it is half full it’s not viable, and doesn’t deserve to survive. Sad but true.

Statistically some portion of recent school closures were inevitable but the far higher closure rate we are seeing directly on the back of VAT and it’s chaotic implementation suggests some closures are related and would not have happened without vat. we won’t be able to evaluate the cumulative relative impact of VAT for at least a couple of years, far too late to fix things for the schools and students that were harmed.

Of course weaker schools will go first. A 20% tax would do that to any sector, even yours if you work.

The idea that it proves an organisation doesn’t deserve to survive is a nonsense though. You could tax half the businesses / charities out of existence with a policy that made them struggle enough.

100% this.

"Your children are expendable, let's just destroy their wellbeing and then we can all rejoice, hold hands and meditate watching the shining glow of the educational ecosystem".

🤯

Apologies, I don’t think that I managed to make my point particularly clearly.

No business has an automatic right to survive just because it still has some customers.

Some businesses provide something unique of a quality, nature and character that is not replicated elsewhere, and are popular, valued and well frequented. In the same way, some private schools provide something that is special and those schools remain - even in times of economic difficulty - because they continue to provide something worth paying the very high cost for.

Other businesses either provide something extremely niche or, more often, something that is not sufficiently different, high quality or distinctive for customers to feel the high cost is worthwhile. They look around at alternatives - cheaper or more expensive- and decide to take their custom elsewhere. In the same way, small and half empty private schools do not survive economic shocks.

I went to school in a town that used to have 1 boys’ private school and 5 girls’, plus any number of preps. It now has 1 mixed and 1 girls’ school, and I think 1 or 2 remaining preps. Does this represent ‘harm to children’? Children being expendable? No, just a change in educational landscape that meant only the best 2 schools - best results, best experience - survived.

So children are customers now?
Is the taxpayer the customer in the state sector? Or are the children the customer in the state sector too? Where can we complain about the customer services skills of the CEO in charge of our “country”?

I really do not like the COO appointed by the CEO, I would like to make a formal complaint and get a refund of my contributions, please. There is a distinct problem with quality delivery, the services provided are not fit for purpose or of a satisfactory quality, given the contract I have entered into and paid for handsomely, each month, by direct debit.

But the schools are closing due to VAT. They might have been less full than they would have liked but it has been a challenging few years and lots of businesses have struggled. I would imagine that most businesses would be finding it a challenge to deal with all that has been thrown at private schools in six months, especially with the cost of living. This was a kick in the teeth and for NO reason, as the amount raised is going to be so small it isn’t worth the distress it is causing. It has always been an ideological decision and it says a lot about the Party which has prioritised it. I was hoping I could support this government but this has shown I can’t.

Parents - or whoever pays the fees - are the customers for private schools.

@cantkeepawayforever school landscape changing over time due to evolving demographics is one thing, schools closing due to a malicious ideologically driven tax that none of us had any opportunity to prepare/ adjust for is something else entirely.

your argumentation is a bit like saying house fires happen all the time, so why get particularly worked up over a specific instance of arson?

I think I remain to be convinced that the schools announcing their closures at the moment are - and I know how brutal this sounds - ones that absolutely deserve to be saved.

Do I believe that all of the 5 girls’ schools in my childhood town had some value, and some happy pupils? Yes. However, in an economic and social environment where only one of them could survive, has the ‘right’ one remained, the one that genuinely offered something over and above, and worthy of its fees (now proportionally much higher, relative to salaries, itself dramatically shrinking the potential market)? Also yes. Did each closure / merger represent children being expendable? No. On average, they transferred to a better private school (as each round of closures closed the obviously weakest school) or in some cases to the (very good) state schools.

We can wish that all private schools stay open, and survive current economic shocks to thrive in future years. Is this realistic? Do these schools all have long term successful futures?

It isn’t about keeping schools open or propping up failing schools - it is about not actively undermining the sector.

framing it as ‘saving’ schools is duplicitous. I am not asking that any school be ‘saved’, just not sabotaged.

So these are, by their nature, schools that you would be ok to see gradually dwindle away over the coming years, with ‘just’ COL, NI and demographic factors in play - but you regard the VAT as uniquely representing children as expendable?

It is deliberate, ideological destruction by the government.

So yes, it is completely different from unavoidable attrition due to demographic changes or the global economy.

Surely you can see that?!?

You assume that all of these schools would dwindle, but actually the number in private education has remained pretty stable historically. I think many of these schools would have navigated through difficult economic circumstances and made it through the other side - some of the schools in question have 100+ years of history and have navigated more than one or two challenging periods.

a school closing is always going to be difficult for students and staff, and for the students affected it won’t make a difference if it was due to vat or other economic / demographic factors. The difference in how I feel is about it is due to the fact that vat related closings are the result of an active choice by our government, and as a result more children and staff are going to have to experience that disruption than would otherwise,

bringing it back to my previous analogy, a house fire is always a tragedy for the family, butsurely we feel an extra level of outrage when the fire was set intentionally

@strawberrybubblegumI have reported your extraordinarily offensive analogy.