Staff Redundancies as a result of VAT on schools

[BarleyMcGrew]

Can anyone tell me if schools are starting to make redundancies as a result of VAT? As in, actually cutting staff?

I know of two schools that have run this process supposedly because of VAT but they actually just ended up hiring everyone back but on less good terms.and conditions. Everyone kept a job, even if it wasn’t on as good pay/hours as before.

The policies (VAT, business rates and national insurance/minimum wage adjustments) are all having a negative impact on independent schools. It’s a massive whammy in the space of a year and I can’t imagine many sectors would be able to cope. Nothing has been gained for state schools (see comments on redundancies there too) so all in all, a rubbish set of policies from the government. I’d say it’s Trump-like in its ability to negatively affect our own economy!

You might be correct on pottery, but I think you are wrong on both sport and music. Every child on the elite sport pathway at my DC school trains outside school. They were recruited to the school on sports scholarships because they were already good players. They continue to train and play for club/ county/ academy teams while at school. The big public schools recruit eg rugby players directly into the 6th forms from Academy sides.

The same applies to music. Music scholars all started at 13 with G8 or above in their main instrument and a G5 or above in their second. They continue to play with Youth Orchestras in the holidays. All of that comes from tutoring arranged by the parents. Same applies to drama.

I actually get fed up when I see schools using certain kids as poster boys/girls for their sport/music offerings when anyone who knows the children knows that their talents had been fostered by their parents.

Also the majority of young people playing sport/music at this level will NOT be at private schools.

It really is an own goal. Look at all the efforts to overturn similar or less number tariffs and we go for a 20% tax just to damage a sector.

Well Labour does and a fair few buy into it.

BarleyMcGrew

German has been deleted

Private schools offer far more flexibility with regards to pupils undertaking sport at elite level. They are given time off to train/attend competitions and work to complete whilst they are not at school. That is one of the reasons that parents choose private schools for their kids who are on the elite sports pathway.

Back here to update. Our prep school has concluded their redundancy process and have announced 15 job losses now.

Basically, they are shedding too many pupils at the top of the school. So previously there would be a full cohort going through to 13yo. Now they are all leaving at 11+ for local grammar. There will only be 7 pupils in the final year for 2025-26.

In this case, where there is (an admittedly outstanding) grammar as an option then parents are leaping at it who wouldn’t have considered it before and would otherwise be staying in private all the way through.

Lovely, lovely Queen Margaret’s near York is shutting. Not sure of the number of jobs, but 50+ no doubt.

They've been struggling for at least 18 months so it's a bit disingenuous to blame vat.

Oh dear, hopefully the QM lot find new schools ASAP!

We have now had 3 schools local to me close, all staff made redundant. My own school has cut about 6 staff from a variety on departments whilst keeping all subjects. This included one member of staff who had 2 children in year8 both children are now leaving so you logic is not always correct.

Not sure I did if you read my post. But it was probably, along with the NI increase, part of the overall picture. It is bloody awful because this affects children whose lives are turned upside down; it also affects jobs - not just teachers but cleaners, janitors, groundskeepers, admin staff. Any organisation like this shutting down impoverishes a community- financially, socially and emotionally.

No you didn't. But it's in a thread on that subject.

Are you suggesting it had nothing to do with it? Just a fluke? Accident of timing?

lavendarwillow · 08/05/2025 23:31
Will we actually see a benefit to this VAT on fees? So many posters here have said state schools are struggling, when will we see the VAT raised be passed onto the state sector? I thought that was the whole point.

I thought Keir Starmer has now decided the money raised is going towards housing;
In the budget last year, my government made the tough but fair decision to apply VAT to private schools.
‘The Tories opposed it. Reform opposed it.
‘Today, because of that choice, we have announced the largest investment in affordable housing in a generation

Sorry to hear you’ve been impacted by the policies op.

Queen Margarets is the second Yorkshire school ( i know of ) to announce its closure this year. Very sad, the politics of envy.
When this was first proposed it was very much the money would go to state schools, nope we are being shafted too.

Sorry to hear that and hope you are ok.

The irony of private school pupils moving to grammar schools - so the well resourced, focussed, private school parents will throw everything at the 11+ and displace some pupils who can’t afford private at all. Well done to the Labour govt for such a progressive policy!

This was always the fallacy of the policy. These parents were hardly going to switch to the “needs improvement” state schools.

Also, I think it suggests that the impact of this policy is going to play out over several years as parents will switch at the optimal moment to get their child into an outstanding state school ie 11+ and 16+ or at the start of their schooling. Very few will switch in year 12 or year 9 or 10.

The full impact may be seen at the end of this parliament.

The irony of the VAT money supposedly going towards housing.

There is not just value destruction via employment in private schools. In areas with a thriving private school the house prices tend to also be higher in the immediate vicinity. I recently visited a part of outer London where a private school had gone co-ed in the last 5 years and become really popular. The whole area has attracted an influx of richer people and the whole high street looks better, less rubbish, house prices have gone up, jobs have been created.

This VAT business is pure and simple value destruction via the future of kids adversely impacted, jobs, house prices, the list goes on and on.
The only winners will be the parents who were on the fence and could have gone either way and instead send their kids to an outstanding state school and save a lot of money.

No words of wisdom just a massive hug. What this government has done is beyond wicked to staff, children, many with SEN and parents.

Yes- and the government has gone about this not only spitefully but gleefully.

On another thread there is a quote posted from Starmer where he says the VAT on school fees will be paying for last week's investment in housing. I'll see if I can find it. Magic money tree VAT that was never going to pay for what they claimed (State schools- then breakfast clubs) now apparently also being used to pay for housing investment.

Well- Stamer's own words here.

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1932789320542261464

Well VAT on private schools is the new fake money tree because a lot of the non doms legged it. Plus someone is actually tracking non dom behaviour so they cannot lie about that one anymore.
Labour just love a bit of classicism! It is what they are about.

Aah @Araminta1003 I muddled my threads up. No wonder I could not find the housing thing on the other one- it was on this one and already posted by you! (It's early...)

This just isn’t true. It really depends on the cohort of staff. I know of a teacher who was made redundant (kind of related to VAT but also due to other school issues) and didn’t want to be. In primary class teachers are in or out, it’s more unlikely that they would have their changed to part time.

Our school is small, rural and has 30% SEN (including one of mine). It's the biggest local employer in our community by far. And that's not including the fact it has a policy to source as much as possible from the local community from food, to tradespeople etc. We have lost by January an average of 2 students per form year- and that is not taking into account the students who will no longer come to the school in the natural intake years. Added to the change to business rates we are looking at carnage. I went to a council meeting about the business rates thing as an observer and the local authority pointed out that nearly 10% of our school population are actually funded by the LA because they are SEN and no state school can meet their needs. I am bolding that on purpose.

My older DS will be in Year 11 next year. My younger one is in Year 9. We hope the school can manage to survive until the end of my older one's school career. 6 months ago we thought that was a reasonable certainty. I do some work myself at the school on an ad hoc basis and when I went to submit my invoice to the finance department they were continuing to go through previous years capital works files to see what they can now claw back in VAT. But everyone is very worried and the numbers for intake this year will give an indication of what the future might be.

I know that whenever a small school closes people sniff and say 'well they must have been on the margin anyway'. Well - yes. The smaller independents often are. It's not the huge elite public schools that will be affected. It's schools like ours that really are filling a severe gap and providing a very real need. We have in our area 3 state High schools. Only one of them has a 6th form. If our school collapsed then I simply cannot see how they can absorb going forward 500 students now or the equivalent intake in years going forward. We have already decided that we will try and home school DS1 through his exams (so I will give up my job entirely to facilitate it and the government will lose my taxes) and god knows for DS2.

It's insanity.