Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 4

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

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

I agree.
On the business rates new rules from 1 April I mention above, I am not an expert on business rates other than knowing for small businesses they can be very high (who then sometimes are competing with online businesses who do not pay them so in an internet age it can be a complex question of how to tax a business from the business rates side of things fairly). The gist of the new Act seems to be that the local authority can now charge private schools but not other charities business rates.

Typical business rate annual bill might be something like £16,000 a year for a high street shop (I think some places have reductions eg pubs). I think the premises have to be valued and that is not easy which is one reason domestic houses have not been revalued for council tax/ what used to be rates purposes for years., It is very expensive and very time consuming. I would say a country house hotel in 20 acres might be comparable to some private schools in the country perhaps in terms of house size and grounds but completely different from a small private primary set up in a couple of houses in a suburban street (there are many like that).

I did see this regarding Scotland etc

"Business rates are devolved, and so we’ve assumed this element of the pledge applies to England only. Scotland removed the charitable business rates relief for ‘mainstream’ private schools on 1 April 2022, leaving it in place for special schools and certain music schools. In September 2024, the Welsh government announced a consultation on charitable non-domestic rates relief for private schools, and has proposed withdrawing the relief. " https://fullfact.org/government-tracker/vat-business-rates-private-schools/

Thank you @Xenia. I'm unsure how there is a distinction between uni/private school given that both are businesses which are paid by users for education.

As a side note I am surprised AI couldn't gather title deeds or estate agents' memorandum of sales from the last 20 years to comprise a quick update to council tax. Was just reading through a thread and it seems to be able to do most people's jobs for them as well as plan detailed holiday and renovation plans for their homes; we should be using it for something more influential considering the environmental cost. We don't seem to use these advances very wisely.

Why do you believe SEN kids should be exempt? Bearing in mind they make up 25% of kids in Indy schools?

@SabrinaThwaite if you choose part time work and a house extension over paying for independent school then I’m fine with it, I genuinely don’t care. It’s your decision, virtue signaling over closing down the option for everyone else is distasteful. These are just children going to school at the end of the day,

Everyone should be exempt from paying tax on education. Everyone.

Exactly. If you agree with taxing education in principle then you don't start exempting certain groups.

The original thought was 4 weeks+ however government dragged us back to court last because they were trying to supress evidence!
They were trying to supress the NAO report that they commissioned and accepted but because it is key piece of evidence being used against them they want it to be inadmissible.
You couldn't make this shit up!

That's because champagne socialists love a bit of virtue signalling. Happy to buy their own kids advantage whilst penalising others for their perceived attempts to do so

I don't believe the tax should be applied to anyone but I think these DC are particularly vulnerable and in many cases have been failed by the lack of state provision and independent really is the only option they have. What I meant was at minimum these DC should be exempt not that they exclusively should be exempt.

But remember the court case revealed that Labour considered exempting them but decided against it because the policy wouldn't then raise enough!!!
The irony of course is that with the number who have left + the 77 schools which have now closed the policy is already bringing in net £0.

@ICouldBeVioletSky could it be worth starting a new thread so we can keep up with the court developments? I've appreciated having somewhere to come and get up to date news and chat to others about what may happen next.

@twistyizzy yes it's ridiculous. How can a report they'd happily discussed for 4 months during the hearing suddenly be marked as inadmissible. I really hope the judges will land on the side of fairness.

I hope Lord Pannick did a good job squashing that argument.

Lord Pannick was outstanding. The worry is whether Starmer has got any judges in his pocket.

I always said VAT was the wrong tax and if they wanted to make a symbolic socialist gesture then a top 50-100 elite private school super tax would have been better. Besides the business rates achieves that anyway as the schools with the fanciest facilities and biggest grounds will be paying a lot in business rates. It is conceptually a bit like the energy company super tax, still leads to some unintended consequences - like higher rents for state school pupils to use facilities/pools but still far better than VAT.

VAT is and always was going to be an entirely foreseeable distaster, not least because the richest schools can manage around it via VAT reclaims and prepayments, and it cripples the smallest schools meeting the SEND market gap.
Given Government has unlimited funds and access to the best legal and tax advice, I am really quite astounded they just went ahead anyway.

I am not sure exempting kids with SEND is enough, whole schools with high SEND rates need to also be exempt as if they lose the full fee paying students without SEND they will still close.

@CurlewKate

Yay! I’ve been picked! And now I’m ‘virtue signalling’ to boot! I can add that to ‘flat earther’!

Still waiting for a house extension though.

Already done (rather prematurely yesterday- I was out all day and wasn’t sure how quickly it would fill up!)

www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5317397-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-5?reply=143671612

StrivingForSleep thanks for this. I wasn’t sure what you meant by CSA in here but I appreciate the post.

I’d add though to your outline of the law of what parents can do, is that the need to try to ‘force’ local authorities to do the normal legally specified things in the EHCP process seems to be pretty much needed at each separate stage of the process, or that feels like my experience of it so far. I’m hearing the same from other parents. The system is really broken.

@EHCPerhaps CSA is compulsory school age. My first paragraph is nothing to do with the EHCP process. It applies to those with and without EHCPs, but yes, parents sometimes have to take enforcement action. Hence mentioning JR.

Asking where you are in the EHCP process was a separate point to the first paragraph.

Thanks StrivingForSleep.
I’d caution anyone going through the process at the moment to go ahead, but prepare themselves to expect delay or other illegality by their local authority at each stage of getting towards an EHCP. And probably then afterwards even if your child is given an EHCP. Many (most?) local authorities clearly don’t have anywhere near enough money to carry out their legal obligations around assessing for an EHCP. or then around maintaining DC’s EHCPs if they do eventually issue them.

And if the council does finally agree to issue an EHCP, then exactly as we’ve heard on this thread, parents may have problems enforcing the EHCP’s stated provision at their DC’s schools. Because SEND support is so underfunded in schools.

Only to be worsened by the deliberately destructive imposition of VAT+ business rates+ NI on private schools. This will add hugely to the burden on state schools’ SEND provision. Which is bad for all kids.

So as a side note to the purpose of this thread, I’d strongly recommend to any parent who thinks their child might need an EHCP, to apply as soon as possible. Do it yourself, if your child’s school don’t seem helpful. The info will be on your local authority’s website.

As to stage- In our borough I presume the majority of families are (like us) months past the legal 20 weeks’ deadline to complete the EHCP process, due to a bottleneck caused by our local authority’s lack of resources to carry out the necessary assessments, and lack of money to pay anyone else to carry them out. Similar stories in many other boroughs nationally.
I wrote to my borough using the IPSEA templates about this delay and they simply didn’t respond, then responded to my follow up letter in a way that contravened their own written policy. They weren’t scared of me, because I’m not a lawyer, just a parent.

Lawyer’s letters written by the amazing SEND charities are much cheaper than hiring a SEND lawyer, but still cost £150+ and these charities also have waiting lists of weeks or months. So (only speaking from my experience) it does really feel like you need to already have some family money to be able to make an effective challenge to a local authority despite the law on SEND being clear.

Many parents are financially stressed to bits already paying for private therapies and assessments for their DC if they possibly can, given NHS and CAMHS waiting times. Plus paying for private school or tutoring in some cases if they can.

I feel so lucky to be able to spend some time and money on all of this. So many parents do not have the resources or knowledge to legally challenge the local authority or even or apply for an EHCP in the first place. That’s why this VAT issue is going to go on and on and probably grow as a more widely felt sore point if the government don’t change their minds on this. Because it is bad for private and state school pupils; those with SEND and those not. I’m so disgusted at the government for making this educational crisis situation even worse for so many DC.

@EHCPerhaps if your LA is in breach of the statutory timescales, have you sent a pre-action letter then pursued JR proceedings? You don’t have to accept the LA breaching the deadlines. If the LA sees they can get away with stringing you along, they will continue to do so. For breach of the EHCP timescales, SOSSEN can help with a pre-action letter free of charge, although there isn’t a wait. If parents are eligible for legal aid, that can also cover the pre-action letter. And JR proceedings themselves, proceedings are brought in the child’s name. Therefore, for proceedings themselves, they can be eligible for legal aid in their own right.

parents may have problems enforcing the EHCP’s stated provision at their DC’s schools.

Parents may have to enforce the provision, including via JR if necessary, but there isn’t a problem enforcing it. Lack of resources, funding or staffing are not lawful excuses for LAs breaching section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014.

If your LA is in breach of the statutory timescales, have you sent a pre-action letter then pursued JR proceedings?

No, because by the time our case reached the top of the SOSSEN waiting list for a letter, our borough had resumed the part of the process that they’d paused on due to their lack of financial resources. SOSSEN advised to come back to them to issue the letter if there is any further delay. There are also issues around enforcing other aspects of local authority obligations too so if this preaction letter becomes necessary then it’s likely to cost £150.

I think to say there isn’t a problem enforcing it risks underplaying how there can be several non-legal barriers to getting to the stage of legally challenging your local authority when they’re not following the law. Which is why I think parents need to prepare themselves because it can be a shock when it happens so openly. The law of what should happen is clear, but often the reality of what is actually happening is far away from that.

There isn’t a problem enforcing provision in EHCPs. Yes, it may need enforcing, but parents can enforce it. Underfunding of SEN in schools like you suggested is irrelevant to enforcement action. People don’t have to accept LAs acting unlawfully.

I see we're ready to move on to a new thread, so amid the serious discussions about accessing provision for SEN children and the hilarity that the VAT-supporters are enjoying, I thought it was a good point to re-post this reminder of why we're here.

@LeakyRadplease could you not say things like this? “The hilarity that the VAT-supporters are enjoying”

Oh I apologise. I forgot that Snark is an irregular verb.

Other VAT supporters are available @CurlewKate .

While many have melted into the ether more recently (wonder why that may be 🤔) we’ve still had the likes of “Katbum” starting threads entitled: “To be gleeful that most of us were right”.