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)

I’m not entirely sure where they think they’ll magic up all these extra state school places from. There will have to be (expensive) capital expenditure on new school buildings to be able to accommodate the extra pupils who will be forced to move from independent to state. There’s plenty of people saying how underfunded and understaffed state schools are. How is adding pupil numbers to the already struggling state system going to help?

This

I think they could get round this using a mix of providers so noone was providing a full time education. The parent could employ tutors who delivered the education and the alternative providions offering things like art, music, social, sports clubs for up to 17 hours.
Lots of sen children end up in unregulated provisions in this way.

I suspect very few parents will actually uproot a settled child, whatever they may claim here or anywhere else. If it was worth £15k a year to you as you took your child away from their primary school friends at 11, you're not going to uproot them at 14 because the fees are now £16.5k. Plus, as already pointed out, if schools think their parents can't afford much of an increase they can reduce the staff ratios a little. There's still a big gap between what they'd have left to spend, post VAT and what state schools run on.

Because if a school that is just making ends meets right now, has to up fees and loses 15% of their intake. The business may collapse.

Or they can't now afford to run the pool/sports hall or most limit the use for cost saving. Eg. Can't afford to pay the caretaker to stay until 10pm for lock up, and the additional 6 hours of heating/electricity etc or afford to employ the admin assistant that organises the external bookings etc

Then no facilities for the local schools etc

Like many private school parents, l would have to pull mine out if fees went up 20%...my DD has a rare health condition that would make state school impossible, and l have no idea how we would manage that.

Plus there are no state school places where we live, as all the Kent schools are massively oversubscribed due to the huge influx of migrant children. l was listening to a programme last week regarding this issue on radio 4 last week.

The idea this would allow the Governments to raise money to reinvest in education is daft as many, many small independents would close so no money there.

Many parents would pull children out, so less money there and many more school places to be found, from where ?

Many schools would be required, and how long would they take to build. What would happen to all those children's education in the meantime?

This is very badly thought out and l cannot see how it helps anyone.

I studied at Cambridge as an undergrad and got there from a state school.

My peers from private schools (of which there were, obviously, a disproportionate number) were by and large elitist snobs who were over confident and underperformed in finals.

If applying VAT to private schools had the effect of sending lots of kids back into state schools it would likely do them a lot of good!

But I think the schools would absorb much of the cost and that this is a pearl-clutching storm in a teacup.

If a Labour government would implement policies to get kids in working families out of poverty; strengthen legislation to stop 2 year old babies dying from mould in their homes; and implement housing-first policies like we had in lockdown to prevent the obscene numbers of deaths of homeless people on UK streets over the past few years... Then I think anyone who'd refuse to vote for them based on this policy needs to take a good look around and locate their moral compass.

But part of the attraction of an inde is smaller class sizes. Why stretch yourself and get a similar experience to stare school down road?

All the "charitable outreach" work that my local private school does is targeted at Y5/6 children. It's doubling up as a recruitment exercise so I don't see that stopping

I thought it the VAT situation was pretty much the opposite of this. At the risk of adding to the confusion I thought:

1. Independent schools (whether charities or not) currently pay full input VAT. If Labour's proposal went through they'd be able to claim this back by deducting it from the output VAT on fees just as any business would.
2. State schools initially pay VAT but then reclaim that under the VAT Act 1994. The problem for 6th forms was because they fell between the different provisions for reclaim for LA schools and academies.

So in essence I thought state schools don't pay VAT (or more properly, they can reclaim it) and independent schools did. If this comes in then independent schools would in essence stop paying VAT because they could deduct it from the VAT charged on fees.

I may have misunderstood.

Have Labour set out exactly what this would entail and their costings because there's clearly a lot of public confusion on it.

Surely if the fees are too high at School A, the inde parents will send them to a cheaper inde school?

And the political pressure to provide enough good quality places will suddenly mean the money is available, which will benefit everyone

You are wrong- school/ state nurseries run to the school timetable ie. Closed when schools are closed. Holiday clubs only take kids from reception up. Private nurseries are open all year pretty much until later hours.

But my point @00100001 is that even if you absorb the full VAT, the fees you get in as the average private school still allow you much higher staff ratios than state schools, which get around £6k per pupil per year a believe. So there's still a strong selling point (as well as the social class advantages, getting away from bad behaviour etc)

I suppose so.

Because the parents will have to re-evaluate their political priorities, and I suspect well-resourced state schools will suddenly become a priority, which will benefit more kids than the current system and funding.

Well, presumably if you can't now afford £25k a year, you'll find a different cheaper £20k a year school...?

And the schools that then get bigger can afford to keep fees low, this attracting more families priced out in the next few years when they realise they can't actually afford tonstat at school, or send second child to cheaper school to save costs whilst the y10 student finishes through GCSE, and move.them.at Alevel

Why wouldn't they just go to cheaper ones?

I can remember my DDad saying that back in the 1960s - what was needed was better schools all round, then the private sector would be for those with a need to board, specialist provision and offspring of wealthy nitwits.

Still waiting......

This unfortunately.

If you add VAT to paid education you end up dragging childcare/nursery settings; university fees; music lessons; swimming/sports lessons; tutoring and the list goes on. It's highly unlikely that legislation would be nuanced enough to just hit private schools.

I agree state education needs improvement through better funding but I really don't think this will have enough impact to benefit state schools unfortunately. Plus there are too many unforeseen impacts most likely.

I speak as previous state school teacher and a parent whose DC are in the independent sector.

Personally we could cope - our DC are secondary so we would most likely manage until they hit 18. One would be out of secondary education before this was implemented anyway and the other is in receipt of an academic scholarship so would be back to zero with a 20% fee increase.

This is my understanding too.

The private sector is often the last resort for an increasing number of parents looking to find an alternative to the violence and poor standard of teaching that is the standard fare served up by the state sector.

Many parents make huge sacrifices and work second ir third jobs just to keep their kids safe.

This proposal will result in the closure of some schools , many providing for SEN, but most Independents will quietly pass on the cost and will no longer feel obligated to share facilities or offer scholarships and or bursaries. In fact fee paying parents will probably insist on it.

The thing is it wont generate that much in tax revenue plus it will mean the state sector having to provide for the poor kids who will have to transfer back. God knows how they will cope but that’s not the point, is it.

Rich people avoiding tax to suit themselves (again) whilst the plebs have to struggle on in state schools.
It really is "one rule for the rich" - really boils my piss TBH!

Is this debate about improving state schools or is it about stripping private schools of charitable status? i think a lot of people are going to be horribly disappointed to find afterward that lack of charitable status in one sector has not improved standards in the other in quite the way they thought.

There are a lot of knee jerk responses as soon as 'private schools' are mentioned which is steeped in anger at the inequality of education which has heavily become politicised. I always notice Labour NEVER say anything about how they as a government is going to improve state education aside from collecting income from private school parents. What investment are they as government putting into education? are they going to invest more per child or increase the budget for state schools? perhaps if they concentrated more on this and raised standards in the state, many parents will see no need to pay privately what they can get for free.

They pay twice and don’t take a state place. I’ll be more annoyed when Labour overfill the state schools which are already oversubscribed and hard to get in to.