Removing charitable status for independent schools

[justanotherdaduser]

What do people here think of Labour policy of removing charitable status for private schools?

I am conflicted about it.

DD goes to a London independent and if in three years or so fees rise by 20%, it will not be easy for us.

But that's just our personal circumstances, and while I will be unhappy if fees go up by 20%, I can also see the point Labour is making -

that the school our DD goes to and hundreds of others like it are not really a charity. Most spend no more than 10% of their fee income on bursaries, if that. Vast majority of parents who send children there are comfortably above national average income. The charitable status is an anomaly and independent schools don't deserve tax breaks reserved for charities.

So was wondering how others feel about it.

(Applogies if this is not the right forum. I am mostly a lurker here and wasn't sure what's the best place to post this. Happy to move this somewhere more appropriate if required)

This is an interesting report on the subject which shows that once you control for the socially selective factors (lower proportions of disadvantaged kids and kids with SEN, larger proportion of kids with higher prior attainment), the difference in attainment mostly disappears.

But I guess keeping out the more disadvantaged kids and the kids with more challenging needs, and taking more kids who start out in a stronger place, is one way of 'lending a cohesive character.'

@CrankyP my daughter's theatre school has to charge VAT

My dc attended pre prep. Nothing charitable about it.

On the matter of lower funding for grammars: this is total rubbish. The issue might arise where grammars are in lower funded LAs, such as Bucks, but the grammar pupils get exactly the same as other pupils within the LA. The main difference will be PP funding which few grammar Dc get. The other aspect is that the fund-raising capacities of the grammars is huge. They tend to have generous middle class parents!

CofE tends to attract well educated and committed people in society. Well, where I live anyway! Their DC gain by having a VA secondary to go if they don’t get the 11 plus. It’s 10 miles away. They could walk to the local secondary. Of course VA CofE schools effectively select. A tiny catchment area ensures SEN is at a minimum and children living 3 miles away on council
estates are excluded. It’s like a club. Charitable it’s not!

Why is there this obsession with VAT on private schools, but none about private healthcare, on which VAT isn't charged either. Why should private healthcare be exempt from VAT, and why isn't anyone irate about that? It genuinely baffles me.

Yeah, I don’t get that either.

Cranky, | think the easier way they could deal with the VAT issue and not taxing nursery fees, universities etc VAT would be a different kind of tax like a windfall tax on energy companies, not called VAT which taxes full time day and boarding schools on the education element (but not boarding element so state boarding schools are excluded as they just charge the boarding charge) for children 5 - 18 in England whether the organisation is a charity (most private schools) or not. It would not need to be 20% of turnover as the VAT receipt would have been less because of those not charged fees on bursaries and because of what the schools could claim back on VAT spent but a lower percentage.

It would have to apply fairly so eg it could not exclude from the charge some religious schols but not others or it would be subject to legal challenge. It probably would have to apply to fee paying special needs schools.

Hopefully Labour will just drop the idea.

LondonMum20222 · Today 07:26
Why is there this obsession with VAT on private schools, but none about private healthcare, on which VAT isn't charged either. Why should private healthcare be exempt from VAT, and why isn't anyone irate about that? It genuinely baffles me.

Maybe too many Labour MPs use private healthcare.

I wonder if VAT is charged on private dentistry?

Once I saw a thread on here with
most of the responses irate with an OP because she was a doctor (i.e. considered middle class and rich) but wanted access to an NHS dentist for herself and her children. This was seen as terribly wrong of her.

VAT is not charged on private dentistry.

Hahaha! Probably true!

There’s no VAT on private dentistry or healthcare, both of which have (in theory) state funded alternatives. I wonder how many people who are in favour of adding VAT to school fees would also support the idea of taxing dentistry and medical charges. I also can’t understand why people would prefer very wealthy people to use state funded resources rather than paying privately, thus reducing the burden on the state.

Are there studies on the impact of private healthcare and dentistry on equality and opportunity for those who don't use them? Or their overall societal impact?

(I can see that there may be for dentistry on individual dentistry outcomes because of the funding model encouraging dentists towards private practice, but not sure of broader societal impacts?)

I don’t know if there are studies, but do think it is very difficult, and must have an impact, when you cannot get treatment for months for something debilitating even if not life threatening. It would affect work, income and relationships.

With dentistry, the long term affects of bad teeth must range from debilitating to ( relatively speaking) disfiguring. I am sure ‘smiles’ help with work and promotion. Even when you can get national health dentistry there are no white fillings rather than unsightly metal, no implants even when it leaves you less able to chew, still fairly costly crowns. Probably other differences.

A year or so ago a group of private day schools (not businesses, these do not make profits for shareholders or owners, they just educate children) offered to take on pupils if the government would give them the £5500 pupil allowance, and they would pay the rest. This was not accepted.
Many city day schools used to be direct-grant. Those who could paid, the state paid otherwise. This increased the life chances of able, but poorer children.

Making everyone equally less well educated is not the answer.

Huge differences exist before school even begins. Some babies have private university educated private tutors for the four or five years prior to school and then afterwards. Then there is the factor of nutrition even before birth. Imo there should be massive interventions of help to the most disadvantaged in these very early years, and special nurseries with even higher staff to child ratios.

I think I would argue that quality of life through poor healthcare - which sometimes might even mean life or death (think of the waiting times and cancelled operations for cancer treatment since the pandemic) - should probably be of greater concern to most people than smaller class sizes and some additional extra-curricular activities for under-18s.

I can see the arguments - I think you can make arguments either way on an individual level - I was asking about actual evidence of the broader societal impacts, which certainly exists for private schools. If anyone can share, that's fab.

And of course we all know about the strong correlation between economic and physical well-being - not driven by access to healthcare but driven by socioeconomic factors that will be exacerbated by lack of social mobility.

People don’t tend to opt for private dentistry for a better class of co-patient who might help them get ahead in life later 😂😂😂

No, people opt for private dentistry because they view it as providing a better standard than the state provision, in the same way that a lot of people opt for private education because they view it as better than the state alternative, for whatever reason. Not everyone who sends their children to private school does so to “make contacts”. There are plenty of areas in the country where there is no grammar alternative and where the state options are poorly performing.

State can be about privilege too. Many get good results due to selection / parental attitude.

The latter doesn’t get discussed much but given that pp had the class sizes don’t make that much difference, also funding is same for grammars / state we it’s likely a factor. Not sure how you tackle it though.

Of course private schools should not be treated as charities. It's ridiculous that they are.

Different selection criteria that don't rely on socioeconomic advantage. It's a lot more work and a lot more centralisation.

But just because the state system isn't internally perfect doesn't mean that we should ignore a bigger source of inequality.

This Sutton Trust report has so other models of fairer admissions.

I realise I asked for any evidence on the wider social impacts of private dentistry/healthcare earlier (though honestly im not automatically against VAT on them either, I'd just be keen to see evidence of benefit/disbenefit first) without providing any evidence on the wider impact of private education. I sort of assumed most people were aware as there's loads out there, but it was still rude of me.

This IFS report provides some interesting data.

Presumably private medicine must be a big advantage to those who use it. If someone in pain, major discomfort or feeling really ill has to wait months for anything to be done about it obviously they are going to be at a huge disadvantage at work and home compared to someone who can get their health problem dealt with promptly.
Is evidence really needed for that?

Charging VAT on items that the state also funds seems counterproductive to me.

You take more people out of one system where they pay just to need to cover them with state funding.

I haven’t advocated for this but other countries do actual tax breaks for this (not this which is just not adding another tax)