Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 7

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuation of previous threads discussing VAT on independent school fees. The thread title is a headline from a Times article last autumn.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5237575-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5242586-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-2
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5280646-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-3
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5301690-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-4
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5317397-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-5
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5337850-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-6

Yep exactly. Hedge funds/foreign owners will jump in and make an actual profit out of education. Fees will go up and UK independent schools will become preserve of overseas elites. Overseas parents are the ones who value a UK independent education, shame our own government doesn't.

‘Each school contributes to the local economy by employing staff, offering facilities to state schools etc. It isn't just the school which impacted, it's the microcosm of people whose lives are impacted. For nothing other than Labour spite and ideology.’

The staff is a tiny issue. The pupils will still need an education, so it is just a transfer from the private to state sector. The sole difference will be the difference in staff/pupil ratio between the sectors.

As for contributing to the local community, that ship long sailed! They could have done so much more to help, but the vast majority contributed little to nothing. So the end result was dividing communities, especially when they were in very mixed areas, common in London. There were several honourable exceptions to this but data shows how few 100% bursaries were rewarded and how little time the schools offered facilities to the community.

I worked incredibly hard to push community in two private schools, with some, but very limited success. I won’t bore you with anecdotes, as I am sure you will counter them with other anecdotes.

This was such a shame as, if more had taken Community seriously, the VAT raid would have been seriously unpopular (and undoable). In addition, pupils actually really enjoy helping the less privileged and working with them. It really is a win/win game when it works out.

Because you refuse to acknowledge that your experience of 2 elite schools is not representative of the whole sector.
Teachers from independent schools aren't going back to state, we now have the evidence to support that ie 1 year's worth of destination tracking.

Its not a win/win at all.

Below are Treasury figures from court case. We are currently at -3% so less than £1B and if current trajectory continues we will hit 10% which is £0 income, earlier than predicted.

It's crazy that a teacher supports the taxing of children's education but we've had this discussion ad nauseum.

I have also posted a grsogoc to show how much independent schools add to the economy. The sector employs over 300K people so yes when each one closes, there is an impact. Especially in rural areas where they can be the largest employers.

@twistyizzy ,

I have stopped contributing much to these threads as, were I still a teacher, I would be marking most of the replies as ‘RTFQ’ or ‘read the ‘full’ question’!

Why don’t people read a post before addressing it?!

‘Because you refuse to acknowledge that your experience of 2 elite schools is not representative of the whole sector.’

I wholly acknowledged it and suggested people look at data for the sector.

‘Its not a win/win at all.’

My win/win in the post clearly referred to private schools contributing to the community, nothing to do with VAT.

‘It's crazy that a teacher supports the taxing of children's education but we've had this discussion ad nauseum.’

I don’t support it, and if you check all my posts, I have always said I am marginally against, like most of my private school teacher friends. I have been totally consistent in this.

I do look at data. That's all I ever do 😄
Data on this is coming out of my ears!

Yes, I would counter with lots of anecdotes to the contrary from the two private schools I have used. Hard to create data on community (bursaries etc to one side) so we will have to agree to try and see past our own life experiences.

Private school teachers are not going to state schools - they are all running tutoring services that the middle classes use to supplement state school education!!

I dont think anyone is arguing that state school provision needs improving.

I am arguing that the disruption in our private sector from the VAT is utterly pointless if the aim is to raise money. The continual churning out of the £1.8bln soundbite by the labour monkey grinders is also now known to be a total lie and I am so disappointed the media continues to print it without fact checking it alongside the pointless waffle.

This was such a shame as, if more had taken Community seriously, the VAT raid would have been seriously unpopular (and undoable)

Private schools already save the state £8k per pupil per year, entirely at their parents expense out of taxed income. That's significantly more public benefit than most charities. And it's a public benefit even those private schools which aren't charities have nonetheless bern providing.

It should have been more than enough. Yet the VAT raid was still popular.

Appeasement never works.

I agree. I didn’t know these stats before.
I still feel shocked by that fact that Labour actually implemented this terrible
policy and have followed it up with absolutely nowt for general education policy improvements. Oh, except the threat of worse to come for disabled children who need EHCPs. Parents aren’t just going to forget about this.

In just over a year, what’s Labour done to help any kid in state or private education? Pretty sure come the start of autumn term it will be evidenced through the lack of state sixth form place and secondary places and pressure on SEND in state schools etc that the burden of this policy has been placed squarely on kids in state schools. And that no revenue or next to nothing has been raised for the public purse.

That Oct 24 budget coming and the threatened VAT hike that suddenly coming in in Jan 2025 shows that things can turn on a penny when there’s money involved. So let’s keep on talking about this with our MPs.

Governments do actually need to think about school places and rural employment and educating SEND kids and all the rest of it. They can’t just put in, and leave festering, useless policies which are detrimental to state school kids just to please the Eat The Rich end of their supporters. I’m looking forward to all the noise and stats that we can throw at this issue every time new figures come out, because they willl be coming out soon.

If you ever want data just PM me and I will post

@strawberrybubblegum ,

‘Private schools already save the state £8k per pupil per year, entirely at their parents expense out of taxed income. That's significantly more public benefit than most charities. And it's a public benefit even those private schools which aren't charities have nonetheless bern providing.’

I don’t think we are going to agree on this one as you see your wealth as a product of your brilliance and hard work, and I doubt you would acknowledge the luck that helped you along your way.

I see a lot of my success, such as it is, down to luck. I joined a bank in the last year of an inflation linked final salary scheme, which meant my pension ended up being worth a couple of million (+), I joined just before the Big Bang where salaries and bonuses increased exponentially, and my first proper property more than tripled in value over 12 years.

I am also objectively clever and worked hard. My Cambridge friends have wealths of between zero and hundreds of millions. The cleverest aren’t necessarily the richest.

Once you acknowledge the element of luck, it is much easier to accept an idea of community and helping those less fortunate.

Private schools are islands of wealth and privilege. They suck the best scarcity teachers out of the state system (me included, longer holidays and about 1.5x the money are a big incentive) and separate the pupils (and parents) of the wealthy from the rest of society. (No matter how much you want to talk about grammars, catchment areas etc, it doesn’t negate any of the above).

And, once you accept that, the £8.000 of taxes saved by the exchequer isn’t really that big a deal. And, as I said upthread, where private schools do make an effort to help the community around them, it is win/win. The 6th formers love reading to the weak state school year 6s, the teachers and pupils love helping state school pupils (who may have never played rugby or soccer on grass) to learn sport properly. And the attitudes of those 6th formers who thought they were academically superior to state schools pupils change rapidly at joint Oxbridge enrichment sessions where they are often outsmarted by the gifted and self-motivated state school pupils.

The idea that this is some kind of trade off or charity is a misconception about what private school community schemes are all about.

Ah all the independent schools charging 6K per year are just islands of wealth!

You extrapolate your experience at 2 elite public schools across the whole sector yet again. Someone reading what you write and who isn't aware of the huge diversity of the sector, may agree with you. Others who know better, won't.

@twistyizzy ,

NAPSALT.

The statistics for the sector are stark. Median income, median fees etc etc.

You might as well argue that some men are paid a lot less than some women means there isn’t a gender pay gap.

Once you acknowledge the element of luck, it is much easier to accept an idea of community and helping those less fortunate

Of course there's luck involved. But it's funny how the harder I work, the luckier I get (Thomas Jefferson).

I don't object to charitable giving, including progressive taxation- so long as it's reasonable. I do object to being told by the recipients of my charitable giving that I'm not paying my fair share. And I really object to the recipients of my charitable giving deliberately making me worse off.

I don’t understand why taxing private schooling is out of the question when taxing private healthcare is a total
nono. I don’t think either of these things should get taxed- and I feel the same arguments apply in healthcare about not consuming taxpayer funded resources and using private when NHS care doesn’t exist or isn’t sufficient for needs, for those that can find the money.
But it’s just interesting how healthcare is totally off the table and education is absolutely cheerfully totally on it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0knr2dmn4mo

Exactly.
There is "free" state alternative to healthcare.

I will tell you why it's off the table: Streeting is bankrolled by owners of private heslthcare companies. That's why

Oops! That should have read: ‘I don’t understand why taxing private schooling is NOT out of the question..’

thank you for being able to interpret my posts anyway twistyizzy

can I ask if you have any further information on the grim tally of private school closures, (with all the staff job losses and the losses of amenity for the wider local community that private schools provide…. ?)

We are awaiting ISC data for Sept starts so sadly not data, just anecdotal evidence for Sept.
So all we can say for certain is data at end of July 25 = 16K children left between Sept 24-July 25 and 55 schools closed but we know there were at least 10 more which closed over summer.

I think it’s simply that the number of voters who consider private healthcare at some point in their lives are higher than the number of voters who consider private education. Private healthcare can be one-off and doesn’t usually require multi-year commitments.

Political calculation rather than philosophical principle, in my opinion.

edit: This is in reference to why some people are quick to rule out private healthcare but not private education.

Understood and thank you for the update that’s very sad to hear for the families and communities concerned.

Are we at the tipping point yet of no money raised for the public purse by this policy when you consider the amount kids who have moved into state schools?
Is anyone mapping where the state school destinations of the kids who have been leaving private schools are, and whether they also have SEND?
I can imagine some parents who cheer on VAT for education wouldn’t be so happy if their own kids or other kids who are talented and underprivileged can’t now get places at grammar or the best state schools because former private school pupils have taken them. Or if their local state school’s SEND provision is being stretched even further due to the needs of kids with SEND now coming to their school, from private schools. Because the government hasn’t added any extra money around SEND to support this movement into state schools, as far as I know?

Here are Treasury figures

We are currently 3-4% down so less than £1B income

MPs were briefed in July that:

‘What is the impact of extending VAT to private school fees?
It is estimated that extending VAT to private school fees will raise £460 million in 2024/25, rising to £1.51 billion in 2025/26.
The government forecast that imposing VAT on fees will result in 37,000 pupils leaving the private sector, representing about 6% of the current private school population.‘

so on paper that might look like a big success if only 3-4% of the private pupil body have left- because their parents have managed to cling on for now until the key exit points after GCSE and A level? But I bet there will be far bigger drops than forecast yet to come. New cohorts won’t be enrolling at private schools as they once did.

I confidently bet that we will also see huge rises in the numbers of kids at private schools with SEND now going through the EHCP process. For some this will mean their local authority (rightly) taking over the school fees of some of those children. This will happen where that private school is the only school that the child can attend (for small class size or another characteristic or specialist aspect of the school that isn’t available in any state school near or far to the family home). As much as their parents might wish that were so and their child could continue to attend the state school up the road that they started at, just like the vast majority of kids around them can do. But the provision needed doesn’t exist in the state sector.

The government and taxpayer were on to a great deal before this VAT imposition. Because many more parents could just suck it up. They were able to cover school fees themselves, that they had had to pay in the first place due to inadequate state provision for their kids. Now this government have knowingly made the fees unaffordable to many families - just to have a theoretical pop at some theoretical kids in boaters and stripy blazers that they don’t like. Who will be unaffected by this change.

All of that meaning there is now inevitably an increased pressure on the SEND funding crisis in local authorities and in state school provision. On the NHS for the assessments needed for evidence of the kids’ SEND needs. When it’s already known that small classes can help that child and the only barrier is family finances.

Slow clap, Philipson and Starmer. And no, the answer is not to remove EHCPs. There’s nothing wrong with them. There’s something very wrong with the funding and provision for SEND in state schools though.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10125/

Because Labour lied to everyone. They have never publicly released the Treasury figures I have posted. Only the court case forced them to release the figures to the court. Their actual figures projected 54000 leaving which = 10% and, according to their own figures, is the point at which the policy brings in £0.

They then ran, and continue to rub, a divisive campaign based on gaslighting, denial and lies.
Vile people

It's absolutely bullsh*t that Starmer is banging on about inclusiveness and pulling together in the name of patriotism when all they have done since coming into power is pitch one group of people against another. It is beyond disappointing and is so dangerous for the future of our country. There are difficult decisions to make but the way you do that is crucial.

🎯