One more time.
I promise.
For about four months now, I have been struggling with an article I was trying to write for Schools Management Plus and I think it is not going to get written.
Sorry Irena. I tried.
The article was going to be discussing the problem of the narrative that might have enabled VAT on private school fees to be implemented all too easily and with too much support. The bit of the article I struggled with most was how we, independent schools, had to look to ourselves for creating a lot of that narrative that eventually proved so damaging for our own industry. Not so much ourselves to blame perhaps, which would have been a really unpopular take, but helpful at least. Helpful to those who wanted to see us gone. After all, had we not all positioned ourselves as the elite? That you'd be lucky if you got in? That we were all like Eton, Harrow and the others?
Kinda?
I was going to write about how we couldn't suddenly track back and say we weren't like Eton and Harrow and the others? Really, we're not. Not. At. All. I was going to write about how perhaps we weren't to blame but we did help facilitate Labour's support for a serious challenge to the very existence of private education in Great Britain.
And then I realised this.
We never stood a chance.
Not a Chance
One thing that has been overstated a lot in the press is the size, importance and impact of the British independent education sector. We're really not that big and we're really not that influential. Compared to, for instance, the impact of Higher Education, the independent education sector is child's play (and, alas, so is its lobby).
I remember meetings at the very start of this VAT on fees journey and I remember people like Tory Gillingham, CEO of AMCIS, trying to get herself heard among the noise of nay-sayers. Trying to raise awareness, trying to say this was going to be happening. A lot of people in those rooms overstated our and their importance, the general consensus being that we were too big. We were too important. We had too much influence. And: we were not that hated...
We overstated our lobby, our supporters and our backing. In addition, we downplayed public perception. Call it arrogance, call it lack of interest, but the Labour party had a better handle on how this would play out than the independent sector did. Call them daft - and many have called them daft (some have called them much worse) - they definitely weren't daft in that sense.
Now I will say that while Tory Gillingham was right about everything, she got one thing wrong, which was was her judgement about acting fast. Her assessment, back in the early days, was that if we didn't act fast, and if we didn't act in unison, VAT on fees would become a reality before too long. I think that was incorrect.
Truth is, I believe, that the odds were always stacked against us so heavily that even a miracle wouldn't have saved us.
Quality of Education is not a Factor
If, like me, you have been shouting about how the maths don't check out; then, like me, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. VAT on fees was never ever about raising money to invest in education. This was never about education in the first place. I will get to that in a minute.
We all know the education budget is so large that the projected £1.3b to £1.5b is a literal drop in the ocean. A teardrop in the ocean, if you like. It doesn't even cover inflation. We also know that the projected amount hardly stands up to scrutiny. The research carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies might have omitted quite a few key areas. It looks as if school fees have been averaged out and that any kind of current fee remissions have hardly been considered; fees remissions that account for many hundreds of millions in discounts. I believe it has also taken a face value approach to how much VAT schools would actually pass on; a figure that now looks to be much less than 20%. It doesn't seem to take into account how the declining birth rate, rather ignorantly referenced by Labour as a good thing in this instance, will further impact the private sector intake numbers and thereby lower the income generated for the Treasury. It is unclear whether they factored in the cost of subsidising children with EHC plans. To tell you the truth, so much is not there, you wonder what has, in fact, been considered by the IFS.
What was also striking to me was a comment passed on by Stuart Adam, who was quoted in the BBC article linked in the paragraph above. Speaking about the potential drop-outs, thought to be around 3% to 7%, Mr Adam said, 'It [the IFS] reached this figure by calculating that parents who stop spending their money on private school fees will eventually spend the extra money on other goods and services, generating extra VAT revenue.'
Now the above seems fair although you have to wonder if that money is going to be spend in Britain or the Bahamas, given the dominant narrative that exists about independent school families. The comment struck me as interesting for a completely different reason though. For a while now, the Labour party has managed to convince us that the £1.3 - £1.5 is earmarked for the improvement of state education. However, if they don't know the exact figure and if they don't know where the VAT revenue is exactly going to come from - ie. private school fees or extra holidays - how are they are going to achieve the financial injection without impacting all taxpayers? Or at least risking to impact all taxpayers?
I think they won't know and by that token, I think the £1.3 - £1.5, whatever amount it is, is going to be hidden in the overall budget. And we won't be able to find it.
Messing with the Rich Buys the Votes
So, no, this was never about improving education. You cannot possibly argue that by attempting to destroy schools, which has already happened and will continue to happen, you are improving education. That would be such a stupid argument, I am actually lost to find a decent analogy.
Another issue is that while the real cost of this move will manifest itself immediately, the benefits, if any, may be a little while. They may never ever materialise at all.
Even if only one student moved across from the private sector to the maintained sector, the cost of this would be immediate. This child's education would have to be paid for right away. The VAT benefit of that would be £0 immediately because the parents would stop paying fees and the cost to the taxpayer would be approximately £7,000 (the cost to educate a child for one year).
Meanwhile, the benefits of the VAT added to school fees are hidden in the trillions the Treasury receives. They are unclear and there is no time frame for these improvements.
Someone on LinkedIn argued the above, claiming that the added income would improve state education. Then, realising she was losing that particular argument, conceded that this was always about politics and winning an election. An extra tax for the wealthy. A ploy to buy votes if not quite the kind of tax yield that will cause much excitement.
Now whereas the vote-buying worked, I would argue that the 'teasing the wealthy' did not quite pan out the way it might have been intended. I am not wealthy myself but I can imagine that it must be quite hard to tease them to the point of causing an actual stir. I can imagine it would be like me trying to hit Mike Tyson as hard as I possibly could. I mean, would he even feel it? Would it be akin to that annoying buzzing sound that keeps me awake on summer nights? Speaking to some truly wealthy parents not that long ago, a 20% increase is a nuisance. Like being told there is now an extra recycling bin or forgetting to heat up your swimming pool.
An End to Inequality is also a Start to Inequality
Slightly ignored in much of the debate are those who will feel the pinch of an added 20% (or 5%, 7%, 12% or whatever increase). Regardless of how much the price goes up, there will be those families who will no longer be able to afford private school fees. Everyone has their ceiling. These families, as you might guess, are not that wealthy.
They are not among the wealthy who pay for private education, nor among the wealthy who choose not to pay for private education. You know who I am talking about here. The wealthy who feel they occupy some sort of moral high ground on private education, deciding to choose state education but shelling out hundreds of thousands extras on a house in the right part of town.
From which windows they hang posters stating, 'Eradicate Private Education'.
Meanwhile also paying many thousands for private tuition, homework help and assistance with university and college applications. But I digress.
Those 'normal' families, who might no longer be able to afford school fees, are still considered (more) privileged and I feel that by removing them from private education that the ideological move really comes to the fore.
After all, this is not about improving education. This is about levelling the playing field. Away from the tax yield, the concept is also to ensure more kids have access to the same level of education. Good or bad education but I think it is now reasonable to assume that there will be no levelling up, so not all good. It is simply a question of money and not enough will be generated through this policy. If we consider the problems in the maintained sector as an arterial bleed - bit harsh, I know - then the £1.3b/£1.5b input isn't even a plaster to try and stem the bleed. It's basically like using a post-it note.
Now if levelling up cannot be achieved, then we are pushing for levelling down. If we cannot afford to give those without privileges some more privileges, then those with privileges, as fragile as they might be, should probably lose those privileges.
Never mind that we're talking about children. If they have any more privileges than others, and private education is a privilege, then it's okay to strip some of them. It is wholly justified, or so it seems. Some people within the labour party have been quite candid and vocal about this. One even said that while this policy is being rolled out, class sizes in the state grow even further, then that's just what has to happen.
If nothing else, it's a moving of the goalposts of inequality and we have to wait and see whether that has been a successful move or a tiny movement of that needle in some direction or other. Will we have eradicated inequality a little bit more or will we have put up higher barriers to mobility and created more have-nots? Only time will tell.
And Finally... Privilege
Now I realise I am speaking from a point of privilege and I understand that standing up for the most privileged 7% of children in Britain seems - well - perhaps perverse or in bad taste. You might argue that I should be sticking up for the other 93%.
First of all, I will always stick up for children and if anyone suggest that by dint of their privilege, privileged children should not be stuck up for, then they are a moron. If the adults in the room don't support children, then who is?
Secondly, let's discuss privilege. In a previous blog post, I discussed my own privilege and that of my daughter. Without discrediting what other parents do, my daughter's privilege has come at the hands of my parents' hard work and, as a direct result, my own. Again, that is not to say other parents did not, or do not, work extremely hard and make unbelievable sacrifices. I am aware of my privilege and I am aware of my significant slices of good fortune along the way. I will also attempt to raise my daughter to be aware of hers. But it is important to keep bearing in mind that we earnt these privileges and I will make no excuses for them. I believe the importance is what we do with our privileges and if my daughter's school only educated fascist dictators, CEOs of whaling companies and corrupt bankers, she would stop going there.
In addition to that, a privileged education is not evidence of a privileged life. It is merely evidence of a privileged education - we tend to assume the rest. Put it this way, if people think that all children attending private schools are privileged, then they - too - are morons. A privileged education is just that. A privileged education. It is by no means any indication that these children are leading a privileged lifestyle altogether. Unless we get close to these children's life stories and experiences, we won't be able to make any kind of judgement on whether they are privileged or not.
They're just a little bit more privileged.
Probably.
This 'teasing the rich' policy is already having an effect on a small percentage of that so-called uniformly privileged seven percent. Some people might say that it's the price you pay but I would ask them what it is we are paying for then. Are we paying for a better education for all or have we been paying for an election win? I fear that early indications point to the latter. VAT on fees will be introduced in January 2025 and it is already affecting a small minority within private education. This means it is already affecting the overall spend on education. I think there's a real possibility, a real risk, that before too long, this 'let's tease the rich' policy will backfire on children all over Great Britain.
It might well be a small price to pay but if we don't know what we're paying for and it's the children who are going to be picking up the bill, then what the bloody hell are we doing?
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