Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 4

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuing the discussion about the impact of VAT on independent schools…

To whip up a bit of class hatred and scapegoat kids at private schools and their families for the general stagnation in both educational and living standards

And as an added bonus, blame the reduced school availability, worse teacher/student ratios, and more thinly spread SEN funding on the private school students: for "trying their luck" for top state 6th forms and schools, as a pp did.

Instead of thanking them for saving the state so much money all these years.

Thinking about it in reverse maybe Pannick should argue that the state should have paid into the education funds for every county what the parent's saved them in private education? I am sure the argument is that they already do. If so and the LA's still can't balance the books, surely they should be looked into for mis-managing funds if a certain amount is not being "used" yet they still can't keep buildings standing or employ teachers, rather than adding more kids on top by forcing school closures?

Eg: My kid from yr 7 to 11 will have saved our council over 110k and I will have spent more than that out of my own pocket. So why are the gov/LA's not able to give state schools that 110k per child, or do they and they simply still can't make it work?

A friend of mine shared with me that her prep school have released their y6 destinations and over a third of the year group are moving to state schools, most of them to selective grammars. Apparently the figure was more like 10% in previous years. So if this is what Labour wanted, I guess its working - privately educated kids now moving into the state sector and taking up places they previously wouldn't have looked at. And its not like there are suddenly loads of new state places to account for this influx are there. Just doesn't make sense as a policy and feels like the consequences were not thought through.

Feel like I should add, I have no issue with this! Children who were privately educated for primary have as much right to a state place as any child and I absolutely don't blame parents for making that move. School closures will probably add to this as well. I think it is a shift we will see more and more of over the next few years.

I think there has been a tail off in the birth rate so for example the current year 6 cohort is smaller than the current year 10 cohort.

Overall the state system can absorb the children moving across from private to state.

But just think now much money could have been saved by the state in not having to educate those children. The labour plan is just making private schools more elite.

I feel really sorry for the children having to move schools part way through their education. Not phasing the VAT is quite frankly spiteful and unforgivable.

All for 60p breakfasts 🤦🏼‍♀️.

In my dd's year of 60 only 6 children are going to private secondary this year.

In Ds' year 18 went!

The other fact to come out today at cpurt. Labour considered exempting all kids with SEN but it wouldn't raise enough money so went ahead anyway

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14564465/amp/Labour-admit-considered-exempting-children-special-needs-VAT.html

The aim is to damage the independent education sector, it’s not an oversight or an unintended consequence. The same people behind the education tax voted to abolish independent schools not long ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2088mzdr8o

we're not paying our "fair share". A more accurate translation would be that we're spending our post-tax earnings on things they don't like, so deserve in their eyes to be subject of a vindictive form of double taxation.
There is a perfectly well-established way to make people pay tax according to their ability to pay: income tax. Using attendance at private school as a proxy for wealth/income and imposing a tax on it is motivated by malice.

"Sir James Eadie, the First Treasury Counsel, told the court there was no obligation for the government to subsidise private education in any way"
He knows, of course, that private education is not subsidised in any way. What makes this argument all the more specious is that private school parents pay full whack for their children's education, and then subsidise the state education of other people's children through their income tax contributions. Already paying twice over is not enough. We need to be made to pay a third time. because that's "fair".

"The government said it rejected the exemptions after a consultation, arguing it would be unworkable and administratively onerous"
translation: we knew it wasn't fair - we were told repeatedly it wasn't fair - but we couldn't be arsed to do anything about it.

Where has anyone said it is vat alone driving each and every school closure? Everyone acknowledges a level of turnover can be expected. Some of us see a sharp increase in closures at the same time government initiates punitive policy and see a connection. Others amongst us don’t seem to grasp statistics, want to examine the individual balance sheets of every single closure and will attribute a closure to anything EXCEPT government policy.

I’m not sure it has been named on here, but Woodcote House Prep in Surrey has apparently announced its closure in July. Another slow handclap for the Labour Party.

Amazing how much grief Trump’s tariffs are causing but 20% VAT on school fees shouldn’t have an impact apparently. I am sure there’s no need to worry about the impact of the tariffs on the car industry, pharmaceuticals and so on. Shouldn’t be an issue if they are well run and, if they aren’t, then they deserve to fold (or so the argument goes).

Apparently when it’s children’s education they don’t do damage.. or something like that.

You’d think we’d be a bit better about education, but no.

It is quite amazing that at a time the show Adolescence is causing such a stir, which includes kids in "a holding pen" of a school with teachers who don't know them, bad behaviour rife and watching films to educate them, which is being hailed as a great representation of the UK's situation currently, we are meant to send our kids into that from their private schools? Why?

Well quite. If companies in the US choose not to buy from us with a 20% tariff imposed, then they couldn't afford to buy from us anyway.

All UK exporters should be able to cut their costs to absorb that 20% cost anyway (as well as the NI and minimum wage increases).

Without any reduction in the quality of product - which might deter buyers - of course.

If they can't, it must be because they had weaknesses. Even if the company has been around for 200 years, they don't deserve any kind of delay or buffer to help them survive the sudden (artificially imposed) change.

When times are hard, why make life even more difficult when you don’t have to do so? I hope the Prime Minister is regretting his appeasement policy.

Yes, they should be able to weather the storm, if they’ve been run properly.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? We have no control over all of this but our own government manage to make the economy even worse by their own actions.

Sir James said parents who wish to opt out of the system of "universally accessible, state-funded education" are free to choose any private education for their child that they can afford, or "to educate their child at home".

This ‘universally accessible’ state education is an outrageous ableist, sexist, racist lie

If my accounts were consistently going down over recent years, I'd have personally stayed clear of Directors' Loans or the costs of planning expansion into a pre-prep.

Rightly or wrongly, I suppose the headmaster (whose family has run the school for many, many years) was hoping he could find a way to keep the school running, saving many jobs and preventing disruption for the children who are pupils there. Without the Labour ‘special’, it might have worked and there wouldn’t be lots of staff worrying about paying their bills and lots of children worrying about where they will be in September. Would you have preferred the headmaster to give up without trying to save his school? It’s a shame Labour felt the need to make things even harder for the sector, especially as the state sector are unlikely to gain anything from this policy.

Right, so just checking I’ve got this clear:

The Labour government’s KC has gone on record to say the government effectively regards the parents of SEND children as a cash cow that should be milked…?

Yeah. They are purposely moking money from kids with SEN, that's on public record in the court.

That’s certainly an admission isn’t it.

I was informed on another thread that “the world doesn’t revolve around” children like my son who wasn’t offered a state education. But hey, state education is universally available. And it’s A Very Popular Policy. (Though the cries of this do seem to be dying down, possibly.)

Quite extraordinary isn’t it.

That's one word for it! Despicable is another one but I'm sure others will come along and defend them

So not because it's 'fair', but just because they can.

This is exactly what human rights law exists to protect against: governments abusing their power.