The Edinburgh Question: Labour's tax on private schools

[Eastcoastie]

A group has popped up on FB aimed at parents in Edinburgh who are against Labour's policy of charging VAT on private school fees if they get elected in July. 25-30% of children in Edinburgh are privately educated so the policy is very likely to require big changes to education providers in Edinburgh and some areas of the Lothians.

George Watson's has announced a 9% fee increase for the coming year and according to members of the group, if the VAT policy goes through, they have been told that this will have to be passed on too, so next years fees would likely see a 20% rise plus inflation. Staff at the school are already on a pay freeze and the accounts show an operating loss.

Members of the group have also said that GWC are planning for a loss of 350 students if the policy is enacted.

Heriots parents have been told of a 6% fee increase for the coming year and the school are also likely to pass on the VAT bill next year if enacted too. Parents are being told, if they are unhappy, to leave.

Prior to the policy being announced, Edinburgh's projections for school capacity flagged 9/23 secondary schools as being at or exceeding capacity in 2023, rising to 18/23 in 2027.

How will Edinburgh/Lothians manage even minimal fall out from the private sector?

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/22448/secondary-school-roll-projections

Chuckled at this.

Unfortunately that attitude is widespread & sadly not confined to Edinburgh

TAs for lower primary (where the class size for state schools is set by law).

My son's class has two TAs/EYPs, as well as the teacher. There's always a qualified and experienced adult there to explain things to him, listen to him read etc

But if the issue the is noise and social dynamics of of 33 children and lack of structure, TAs won’t help them - depends what the specific issues are but for mine the environment overall wasn’t working. I’m really glad your son is doing well and is well supported.

This is one of the problems with this ridiculous VAT policy. The Labour Party haven’t thought through the consequences. Not only will they have to accommodate those choosing to leave the private sector, there will be problems if a private school is forced to close because of dwindling numbers. Those pupils will then have to be accommodated elsewhere.

There’s the added complication that the Labour Party have said that those children where their private places are funded through EHCPs will be exempt from the VAT charge, but as I understand it, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland don’t have the EHCP system. What will happen to children with EHCPs/SEN where parents are funding their fees?

And we don’t know @Another76543 this hasn’t been thought through at all.

all labour have committed to, is to introduce VAT with all possible haste. That’s all we know for certain.

Wow 33?!

Is this at primary? I couldn't cope with 33, let alone a child.

I know the Scottish Government has legislated on primary class sizes, and class sizes have since come down.

Clearly not enough

Someone was discussing this on the fb group. Seemingly in Scotland it is called a coordinated support plan (CSP) but you cal only get one if you are a state school!! So it would mean that the tax rule cant be applied the same throughout all of the home nations. Surely this isn't allowed? If rules changed and you were able to access a CSP for reduced fees, surely the number of children with a CSP will simply soar. More money and personell will then be required to administer the CSP applications. Its all so ill thought through!

@Ginny98 and 33 in p4 was absolutely what we had, and in 2020 - I see no evidence it’s changed in 4 years?

https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/s29861/7.11%20School%20Admissions%20and%20Appeals%20Policy.pdf

I posted this in an earlier comment but these are the limits scot gov legislated. Certainly in east lothian, the bigger schools are hitting these thresholds or very close to it often. The smaller village schools have a great advantage here. You only need one clown in a class of 30+ 5/6/7 year olds and nothing will be able to be taught.

The national maximum class sizes for a single year group are:

• Primary 1 - up to 25 pupils
• Primaries 2-3 - up to 30 pupils
• Primaries 4-7 - up to 33 pupils

The maximum size of a composite class of any age group is 25 pupils.

There's been masses of new houses built round Edinburgh over last few years and still more ongoing. Near me there's thousands new homes at Cammo, Kirkliston and now by Ingliston, plus a whole new town at winchburgh just bit further out. Plus all the new ones you're talking about in East Lothian.

These are all family homes and will really affect school places, where are all these families coming from? They can't ALL be moving out from city centre, does anyone know if any demographics have been studied?

My brother and I were just talking about this last night. As a family we were Edinburgh state sector educated (admittedly at one of the very oversubscribed schools). His DW grew up in the same postcode as us and went privately.

Our view was that if the private schools had genuinely opened up their facilities "for the good of the community" and not just for the privileged few they might not be facing these issues.

I have strongly held the view that Edinburgh state secondaries are poorer because a lot of motivated parents use the private sector and devote their energies there. Educationally the offering is similar. If anything my sibs and I have out performed the privately educated comparator my SIL and her siblings provide but the extracurriculars available privately were better/ available with less graft.

Fees are already an issue for the edinburgh middle class. My peers working in Edinburgh have mostly played the catchment area game rather than pay fees. Which is interesting as 20 years ago it would have been rare to find someone working in our profession whose kids went to state school (and in those days they would often have a non-working spouse too!).

I’m not sure that you can compare people the age of current parents to the current generation of post pandemic children though - the whole reason for this policy is the nose dive in funding per pupil since 2010. To say nothing of the specific post pandemic SEN and MH crises schools are experiencing.

I note labour planning to use private health for nhs wait lists, as the tories have done, but no corresponding plan to encourage parents to invest. We’ve got a post pandemic crisis in education but no clever plan to leverage private sector capacity here.

I don’t understand the double standards - good education being partly an investment in your future health and well being after all.

we say private schools haven’t widened access but this is an area open for the govt to come up with a plan and work with schools instead of abandoning the principle that education is not subject to VAT.

This was posted on the FB groupnand is an extract from an email from Ian Murray MP in Edinburgh. The para in highlight is evidence that Labour is prepared to push this policy through in Scotland in full knowledge that there is no guarantee that a single penny of the revenues raised will go towards state schools in Scotland.

Far from increasing funding for Scottish state schools, the opposite is far more likely as a direct result of this policy. That already threadbare and inadequate resources will be stretched yet further by the influx of children who would otherwise be at independent schools.

ALL Scottish schoolchildren, with the exception of the truly wealthy who will be able to absorb the increase without batting an eyelid, will in fact be worse off as a direct result. That is appalling.

Yep…so basically they are entrusting the increased revenue to the SNP who clearly have no interest in education and will waste it on whatever their current crazy scheme of choice is.

The money will clearly disappear down the back of the bulging SNP sofa.

I have been trying to go through the Scottish government spending to work out where the extra £2k a year per person Scotland spends goes but it’s hard. But when the SNP stands back and does nothing while Glasgow council cut hundreds of teaching jobs, the chances of them properly funding education are slim.

Has the SNP come out and said what their view is on putting VAT on fees? I can imagine they are rubbing their hands in glee

Scottish kids do get more school spending per head than English kids.

But the increased education funding across the uk since 1997 has mostly been swallowed by increases in teachers pay.

I'm not saying teachers should be paid less but how much benefit does it give a child if their teacher is paid more?

Wouldn't teachers prefer to be paid less to teach class sizes of 20-25 rather than more to teach 30-33?

Not sure, iv just emailed my local candidate and asked

I'm lazy by nature and don't get involved with committees, school politics etc. My contribution to the local state school's success is sending my kid there, the son of two intelligent professionals.

I don't believe in good and bad schools, it's all about intake surely. That and judicious pruning after fourth year to trim out anyone who will bring down the grade averages.

I feel so lost on general 'state v private' threads on here populated by English parents, who seem to have to apply to state schools. Thank god ours just go down the road, I wouldn't have the energy for horse trading.

I think you’d still have to apply to get in. Your application should be automatically accepted if there is space in the school but they are not always - even if you are in catchment - and the school is full. Plenty of space in the ‘bad’ Edinburgh schools…

I’m in Edinburgh and sent my kids private for primary as our catchment school was one of the worst in the city. However we always planned to take them out for high school as that is decent (Broughton).

when the time came it was super stressful and I really struggled thinking my DD would be bullied for being posh etc, but the eldest has thrived in Broughton. Top classes, on track for excellent Nat 5s, nice friends. She gets glowing reports which she didn’t get in private where she was in the lower half and it killed her confidence.

She has now got friends who have chaotic home lives, live in poverty, care experienced, come in with no lunch, lots of learning challenges and it has opened her eyes to how privileged she is. She was actually becoming a bit bratty and entitled in private school which I didn’t like. She is much kinder now.

My youngest goes to Broughton this year and I am so glad! After all the massive fee increases it was getting crazy. Last payment has been made!

I would say the private school did a great job over Covid, way outstripped the local state schools with two hours online class time a day plus recorded lessons and timetables.

but talking to other parents, she is the only one leaving. I actually think people will borrow/remortgage before they pull out. It is more an issue for S1 and P1, but also for schools like Flora’s kids aren’t leaving in P6 to go private.

despite going private myself, I do think more kids with education motivated parents staying in the state sector will be good for state schools and improve performance. In Broughton it is very mixed and if you look at the figures and take into account social demographics and kids doing vocational/college, they actually perform as well or better than Royal High.

As a teacher I'm pretty shocked by the attitudes and language used on this thread. What exactly do you mean by a 'good' school @Elephantpants? What is it that's so 'bad' about Liberton HS? It's very clear from data in Edinburgh, Scotland and the rest of the UK that the schools with the highest % of A passes are the ones in the wealthiest areas. Nothing to do with how 'good' the school is. Just pupils lucky enough to be brought up with all the advantages that wealth brings. I'd argue many state schools in deprived areas actually do a much better job with the pupils and limited resources they have but are still described as 'bad' schools. Clearly taking 30% of the highest achieving pupils out of any state school system is going to affect the remaining school results with such a skewed cohort of pupils. So all this fretting about the effect of VAT on education overall is just in my opinion a more palatable way to complain about increased fees. You get no sympathy from me. As someone born and bred in Edinburgh I'm embarrassed to read this thread. If you cant afford the fees, put your kids in a normal school, if you don't like it, find somewhere else to live.

I sympathise with anyone who is worried about finding schooling that they feel is most attuned to their child’s needs. I also agree to some extent with the comments above. My DC was at a so-called “bad school” but got 5As at Higher (in 5th year’ in one sitting, blah blah) as did several of their friends. DC1 seemed to be doing fine but I thought a bit of support for oral French wouldn’t hurt so arranged that, have done the same for DC2 who has also had a bit of maths coaching. DH and I were able to give quite a bit of direct help, definitely at Nat 5 level bur DH’s PhD came in handy for one of the Higher subjects. This was a layer of help we were able to provide because of the social and financial resources we have available to us. DC1 did one of their AHs at one of the highly regarded Edinburgh state schools and said it was just the same classroom experience, did not think the teaching or level of support was any better than their normal school, only observation made was that more of the kids seemed a bit posher.

I know my DCs have had their eyes opened going to the school they did and part of that is realising that people look down on their school and may well also look down on them - this may not be the case but they know what the Edinburgh school chat is and they know if they are viewed as having gone to a “rough” school then they may also be dismissed as such.

I totally agree that the teaching is no different between good and bad schools. I went to one of scotlands rougher schools and his 5 As. What differs is the attitude of the classmates and the teaching environment.

I have one child in private and two in state. The reason the child in private is there is due to her being physically and verbally assaulted day after day after day. The Scottish state system can do nothing about persistent violence. Restorative conversations don’t work with a lot of kids. Temporary exclusions just gave my child temporary respite. These issues - though rare, we were unlucky - are more common where kids lead chaotic lives and lash out to compensate. And in the more deprivation areas you are more likely to find children who lead chaotic lives sadly. The reason I wouldn’t send my child to a ‘bad’ school is as someone with ASD they are continually bullied, and the chances of this would be higher.

Sending my child to a private school has been utterly transformative. My child has experienced no bullying, after years and years of unaddressed bullying in the state system. And the teachers have more time to teach due to less low level disruption. The teachers ability is the same between good and bad and private. It’s the learning environment that is different.

EIS are against VAT on schools - if it’s all middle class Tarquins whining, I wonder why?

There’s very little debate on the principle of classing education as a luxury, rather than Labour using progressive income taxation.

which is funny because the reason the IFS thinks parents will keep paying is…because demand for essentials are less responsive to price changes.

but I’m not kidding myself that making good arguments is going to stop this policy…it’s clear most people haven’t really thought about it, and as usual, people are always happy with tax
rises they don’t face.