No exodus to state sector after VAT added to private school fees, say English councils.

[FruitPolos]

Article in today's Guardian. Interesting to note the comments from Surrey in particular given the discussion on Mumsnet about this particular area.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/10/no-exodus-to-state-sector-after-vat-added-to-private-school-fees-say-english-councils

"Surrey, which has large numbers of children in private education, recorded a dip in the proportion of families getting their first pick of schools for September. But Clare Curran, the county council’s cabinet member for children, families and lifelong learning, said: “Surrey has not seen a significant rise in the number of applications for a year 7 state school place for children currently in the independent sector compared to last year.“For September 2025, 664 on-time applications were received from Surrey residents with children in the independent sector, compared with 608 for September 2024, a rise of 56.“While the percentage of applicants offered their first preference school has decreased for September 2025 [80.6%] compared with 2024 [83.1%], the 2025 figure is not dissimilar to the 2023 figure of 81.3%.”

Funnily enough, it was politicians in particular I was thinking off when I said education is never a waste. From their personal perspective a tunnel vision approach to a PPE degree and a life in politics may have seemed successful…

Very true... a large percentage have no real life experience.

OMG, it's real sh.t, I can see what will be next

Terrifying.

As a parent of a SEN child there is already nothing unless you devote your life to fighting for an EHCP as early as possible.

And incredibly hard to even find out what strategies and help you can provide/fund yourself.

This suggests to me that there is going to be a lot more:
Teachers, just make it work in mainstream. (But no tools or money)

Parents, you need to understand that little Johnny may disrupt the class but it's good for children to understand diversity and we can definitely rotate the quiet girls so they only do a term at a time being an unpaid TA.

Johnny's parents, sorry... no money for interventions but isn't it great he's now in mainstream.

And... it's a finite problem as eventually Johnny will age out of education and no longer be a problem for schools.

Bloody hell, yep.

Can't wait to hear the Labour faithful trying to justify this one!!

The irony is that it will likely push more people into private or homeschooling where you have some modicum of control / input into your child’s educational experience.

as a parent of an academically able send child I am in private because of the smaller, calmer classes as well as the fact the teachers take dc’s needs seriously, and more importantly have the bandwidth for meaningful interventions. At the same time we had a family join this year because younger child’s state class was 1/3 observable send in reception, many with 1:1 support, and very little teaching was being achieved for understandable reasons.

yes, a great number of send children could be successfully educated in mainstream settings but doing so successfully requires a very different type of mainstream than exists today - smaller class sizes, more trained staff, more space to accommodate different sensory and movement needs, etc. as well as a curriculum (especially in early years) that is more flexible in its execution. If that is what she means by ‘thinking differently’ that would probably work and benefit all children in the process, but sadly I think it is none of the above and just a mechanism for reducing spend.

They’re intent on making education worse at the same time as striving to limit other options.

So bad for dc.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow So education should only cater for one group of people?

?? I truly do not know where you got that from.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Nobody insists that all children must study music and history till 18. Why is maths more relevant?
I have yet to find a purpose for matrices and quadratic equations...

Again, maths and English are more relevant than music or art because they provide crucial life skills which other subjects do not.
Of course, it all depends on what you study and how.

Not many people need to study iambic pentameters and partial differential equations.

But everyone, no exceptions, needs to be able to write and communicate effectively, to comprehend a text, and to have numeracy skills which allow them to function in modern life, and to comprehend things like how the interest on a credit card or a mortgage works.

If I remember correctly, the reason UK students are on par with most peers up to 16 but not after in all the international assessments is precisely this: not because French and German teenagers all solve partial differential equations in their sleep, but because in other countries they keep studying their language and maths till 18, and this helps them with language and numeracy skills.

I don't remember the exact details, but there are a few studies and surveys on how 40-50% of UK adults have very poor numeracy skills and struggle to understand the most basic concepts of interest and compounding.

At work, I am often shocked by the poor written communication skills of engineers with top grades from top universities, or by the poor numeracy skills of lawyers with top grades from top law schools.

IFS say 5 to 6 billion over the course of this Parliament, not too shabby and can go someway to addressing the terrible state education and the estate in the public sector after 14 years of the Tories.

Bottom line is, if they hadn't slashed public services to the bone, look at Racc in schools?
Labour wouldn't need to be doing this.

Why is it bad to put an extra 5 to 6billion in the state sector from this VAT increase?
Levied on people who, in the main, can easily afford it but do shout the loudest

Actually IFS subsequently rowed back on this figure and the Director of IFS is on record saying "it will bring in very little". Thats partly because it was based on overly optimistic estimates, missed exemptions, didn't include the amount of offset which could be claimed back, under estimated SEN and finally more than expected have already left indy schools for state plus 3 x the 'average' number of indy schools have already closed since Jan 1st.
BP is spending 100s of 1000s on KCs trying to defend this policy in court.
VAT is used to change behaviour and that's certainly what we are seeing.

Likely net income per year is now between £0-500K.
Plus it isn't a hypothecated tax so is just going into general purse rather than directly to education.

Stop being so arrogant and telling people what they can afford! We can't.
Could you afford a 20% increase to your mortgage with 3 months notice?

The money isn't hypothecated, it isn't going to state schools

Where are you getting 5 to 6 billion from?

The government's own best hope is for less than 2 - and they haven't ring fenced the money. Apparently it will pay for a third of a teacher per school...

This policy only makes any money if less than 10% of current private school children move to state.

If those children happen to be SEND (over 20% of private school pupils are) then it's probably less before they're in negative territory.

Can you also explain why you think people can 'easily afford it'?

ETA : the only people doing well from this policy so far are schools like Eton, that have just reclaimed millions in input VAT from the Treasury for their theatres and science blocks and boarding houses.

Thanks for info

I think this will be a slow burn realistically if you’ve already invest a good few years not to mention £1000’s they gave you over a barrel makes no sense to pull out just before the last fence

I think it will be new intakes that will start to drop then the knock on effect of making the school less viable

2 private schools near me shut in the last 3 years as not viable that was before this

I agree that a class that teaches 'life skills' Maths and English would be great. But I haven't seen proposals for anything like that.

One also has to ask the question - if people are coming out semi-numerate and semi-literate after 16 years, how does another 2 years actually turn that around?

The IFS report was a Labour promo piece, not a serious publication.

Regarding SEND funding in state schools, if the Government did not expect schools to self fund quite a large amount per pupil but would fully fund it in the first place, then all state schools would probably be more inclusive in the first place, there would be more money for SEND hubs in secondaries and many kids would then not even have to go to the most expensive special schools. So if they just put their hands in their pockets at the outset, were to diagnose all kids promptly then we could likely all save a lot of money on SEND as a whole. Those kids would in the future also likely contribute more to the economy.

Understanding basic legal and financial skills should maybe be added to the PHSE curriculum. There is already some of that stuff in there and probably just requires expanding, to include even more on democracy and politics too.

I never believed that there would be an exodus to state schools, and never had any sympathy for the schools when they've increased their fees far in excess of inflation year after year after year. I saw something that said over the last 25 years they've increased their fees by 550%, when consumer prices have only increased by 200%.

I do have sympathy for the parents of children with a SEND requirement.

We’ve paid the VAT. Has your school received extra funding?

This report doesn’t say what a lot of people and journalists are claiming.
The actual numbers moving from private to state will only be known in September. It may indeed be a trivial number but right now we don’t know.

The numbers of people getting their 1st choice of state schools is not an indicator of the number of people switching. Why is this line being pushed? It’s statistical nonsense.

Parents of students in private schools or considering private schools often apply to state schools as well. Some of these get their 1st choice. Some will not take up their place. Potentially more of them this year will take up their place. We will only know this in September.

This report is also only for year 7 entry. There is generally a lot of switching between schools for 6th form, including switching from state to private and vice versa. This report says nothing about this because generally offers are only firmed after GCSE results on the summer.

Do you know why the fees have gone up?

The largest part of their budget is the cost of teachers. I think it’s about 70%.

The biggest rises in costs of teachers are increases in employer national insurance and pension contributions both of which have increased far in excess of inflation. Employers now pay into the teachers pension fund an amount equal to 30% of the base salary, this has risen from 16%. Private schools pay this out of the fees they charge. State schools don’t pay this increase out of the funding per pupil, they get extra funds from the govt ie the taxpayer.