School fee VAT and the council, surely this can’t be happening?

[Sat100]

A close friend has told me that at their school, parents have had to move their child out due to being priced out and unfortunately there are no state school places available in the area. The council is now apparently paying the VAT on behalf of this family on account of the fact there is no space in the state sector within a certain mileage of their home. I am in disbelief…has anyone else heard of this happening?!

From the 2023 tutoring report, it looks like “state based” tutoring also grew significantly post covid and was focussed on deprived areas. I don’t know if the programme still operates.

(The report says nothing about whether senior Labour Party members use private tutors)

• Across a variety of measures the pattern of school-based tutoring is the opposite of private tutoring. The most deprived schools have the lowest rates of private tutoring (19 percentage points lower than the least deprived), but the highest rates of school tutoring (13 percentage points higher than the least deprived). This also holds for household income, parental education as well as region. Areas such as the North East, East Midlands and Yorkshire which had among the lowest levels of private tutoring had among the highest levels of school tutoring.

@SheilaFentiman have you seen the examples of breakfast schools are providing? Hardly nourishing and nutritious.

No one can possibly think that diverting funds away from STEM initiatives and Latin in favour of giving wealthy families a “free” slice of white bread and smear of jam is a good use of the public purse.

@CurlewKate cutting subject choice is never a good thing. They’ve cut STEM and Latin initiatives already. What next? Art? Music? Drama? Foreign languages? Cutting choice and breadth of subjects is not improving state education. We need to be inspiring our youngsters; we need artists and musicians for example. We shouldn’t be trying to shoe horn all children into one box of studying nothing beyond the basics of maths and English. It’s precisely why so many children and families aren’t engaged in education.

Well, the BBC haven’t covered the third day in court so if there are any good summaries of where the proceedings have been left could anyone kindly share them on here?

The Times has something but I don’t subscribe:

www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/vat-private-school-fees-news-k067flfhf

The ISC has quoted the Times but don’t know if that is the full article:

www.isc.co.uk/media-enquiries/isc-daily-news-summary/

@Another76543I absolutely agree we shouldn’t be cutting subject choice.And in an ideal world we wouldn’t.

There's no money to do much at the moment.

Yes this has happened to two people I know. Previously paying for fees but now paid for by the council. Don’t even have a EHCP.

In other words, Labour ambushed private schools parents in January to try and make some money out of a completely dud policy which they introduced to gain votes. Which will be loss making in the medium term, and only made cash because they illegally and in breach of human rights ambushed the parents of some kids. I wonder if they will eventually give the money back? It is all rather shocking. I guess the Tories got away with Brexit and Rwanda and that was worse.

@SheilaFentiman - by definition any concrete studied data will always be lagging.
We current parents know on the ground that tutoring is rife. But it is not even just tutoring that is an issue. We are seeing a massive rift now between DCs of privileged parents with healthy access habits to screens and revision tools vs deprived kids for whom the internet does the opposite. So current Year 11 - as a group - the gap between highest and lowest achievers is even worse. The only way for state schools and the State to bridge this huge gap is via healthy technology access habits.

I know, but I struggle to have respect for people who resent private schools but have no will or interest in improving state education. Unfortunately, I think that includes most of the Labour Party.

@neemie.I struggle to have conversations with people who accuse me of “resenting” private schools because I don’t agree with their take on the situation. It would be great if we could keep this respectful.

To me it does seem as though your take on it is idealogical.
It just seems another axe swing at one of the foundations of society.
Define those that are doing worse as victims, define those who are doing better as perpetrators, destroy the high functioning schools for no reason and move on.

The parent has to provide their child with an education. For most this is in schools, state or private.

In the state sector the local council has certain statutory duties to provide a school place, provide travel if the nearest suitable school isn't local etc.

So yes they can pay VAT. They also can and do sometimes provide full fees for children if they are at crucial parts of their education eg GCSE year.

Not where I live. There was an absolute bun fight last summer to get 6th form places for September, people were thinking ahead about the Vat, this year will be far worse. Some state school kids will lose out to private school kids moving over.

@SomewhereinSuberbiaif you are addressing me in particular, I have said absolutely nothing to to support that absolute travesty of my position.

Thank you for the link

This is a very simplistic view. New numbers show demand from primary school places and senior school places are forecast to rise in some areas.

I’m in the East Midlands and we’ve had 2 new senior schools open within 15 mins walking distance of our house in the last 6 years.
They are building primary schools too. There is still a shortage of places.
https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/pupil-numbers-regional-forecasts-schools-need-to-know?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR4DDE9uiQKAbVWFy81VKwxeD5tYuWezg0R61vRp4KPd1q2Is9s4UKn0sKAyDw_aem_q8xLXvnoHGxwbGFOC-MSMA

So far this year there are 27 local authorities in this position.

Not to mention Drama and Music

Where can I see a list of them please?

You have to look them up individually though Google updates every month or so with the overall number. Surrey has been the worst hit with no places left for years 9-11 and very few in 7-8.

Presumably you already know the 27 LAs as otherwise you wouldn't know how many there are. Which authorities besides Surrey?

I found out the number on Google. In year 7, Nottinghamshire is the worst hit and 20 LAs have no capacity for the year group - it’s different year groups in different LAs. I believe in year 7 the worst hit are Notts, Walsall, Bristol, Stoke on Trent,

I'm trying to find this information on Google but I'm not having any luck. I've seen an article about English councils reporting no impact on applications for year 7 places. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/10/no-exodus-to-state-sector-after-vat-added-to-private-school-fees-say-english-councils

I've googled Surrey and Nottinghamshire state school places and can't see anything that says they don't have places in Year 7. If 20 LAs have no capacity for Year 7 places, I'd expect to see that reported somewhere.