School fees -LA doing a 'deal'?

[aregularposter]

Does anyone know if it's common for LA's to get reduced rates for independent school placements?
It has been intimated that some kind of 'discount' was given to the LA when the placement was agreed but I don't know what this was. I now wish to consider other schools and need to compare fee's. Will the current school be likely to tell me the fee's if I ask them or should I ask the LA what they pay?

I also have some records showing that the long integration period (residential) was undertaken free of charge. Just seems a bit odd really.

LAs can negotiate fees. They are spending public money and are accountable for the money. Unless you are paying the fees then dont concern yourself with this. They will sort this between themselves. I would me more worried about why you want to change schools and whether or not they agree with the reasons.

I don't know much about this but I think you can find out because of the freedom of information legislation. I think you can do a freedom of

Whoops

• information request to find out how much the council pay for his school place.

My DS's indie special school fees are discounted by approx 9k because the LA have quite a few children placed there.
I didn't get the indie special school i wanted due to this discount because it meant the difference between the schools was 16k instead of 7k. My solicitor said it would be difficult to get a difference of more than 10k through tribunal when both schools could meet DS's needs and were similar travelling distance.
It's still better than one of these ms with units which is what the LA originally proposed, so i was happy to agree to it.