CATHEDRAL and choir schools that provide for special educational needs can be “severely affected” by the brand new Government’s pledge to scrap the VAT exemption for independent schools, the Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, has warned.
The impact can be “disproportionately severe” for small schools, he argued.
Currently, independent schools don’t have to charge VAT on their fees because there may be an exemption for the charitable supply of education. In its election manifesto, nevertheless, the Labour Government pledged to scrap this exemption. This is on account of apply from January.
Speaking within the House of Lords last week in a debate on the topic, Bishop Chessun said that the Government had “a well-evidenced belief that folks purchase an economic and social profit for his or her children’s future through private education”, and that, while there was an “undoubted premium placed on forming character or the excellence in pastoral care that a few of these schools exhibit, the Government nevertheless have a mandate for change”.
The girls’ and boys’ choirs at Southwark Cathedral — drawn “almost entirely” from state schools — can be unaffected, he said, and “quite a lot of schools in my diocese offering provision for special educational needs and disabilities have their places funded by the local authorities.
“But there are cathedral and choir schools, and personal schools, with provision for special educational needs that can be severely affected by the change that the Government intend. Many of those are small schools, and due to this fact the impact can be disproportionately severe.”
The Lords briefing on the talk states that 20 per cent of pupils on this sector receive provision for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This, the Bishop said, was of “undoubted public profit, but of those, only 6.9 per cent have an education, health, and care plan. This suggests that there’s a significant element of special-needs provision that’s currently covered by private funding, and which can’t be absorbed by local education authority budgets if private places develop into unaffordable.”
If small- and medium-sized schools that provide SEND provision became unviable, he continued, “the overall SEND capability within the country, already overstretched, becomes yet smaller.”
He asked the Government whether removing the exemption “at such short notice” in January 2025 allowed enough time to regulate budgets.
Concluding, he urged the Government to approach the talk with “much greater sensitivity” in regards to the “opposed and unintended consequences. . .
“There is the distinctive yet gloriously diverse world of cathedral and choir schools, which proceed to safeguard and feed the English choral tradition. They are intimately sure up with their localities, drawing choristers from a large social background, and have a really significant impact on the choral and musical lifetime of this nation.”
He referred to 1 example: “A 100-per-cent bursary fee remission for local children who’re very talented musically but whose parents cannot afford any fees, with quite a few other pupils who’re in receipt of 75 per cent or more remission — the main target now being on remitting fees, relatively than on awarding scholarships, to extend social inclusion.”
The debate was brought by the Conservative peer Lord Lexden, who argued in his introductory speech that the exemption was being brought in with “extraordinary haste”, and would have “serious and far-reaching consequences”.
Independent schools didn’t, he said, “enjoy some type of special exemption from tax that they don’t deserve. The truth is that each one those that provide educational services have all the time been exempted from VAT, as they must be. . . The current tax regime has helped independent schools to thrive.”
He was linked to the Independent Schools Council, representing about 1400 schools, and the Independent Schools Association, representing 670 schools. Some of the smaller schools had only 200 pupils, he said.
“They include performing-arts schools, bilingual schools, and lots of special-needs schools. They cater for the kids of hard-working local parents who’ve struggled to have their needs met within the state sector. Many are virtually unknown outside of their local communities, where they’re highly respected.
“The . . . comparatively small number of enormous, well-known schools — Eton, Harrow and the remaining — which exert a lot fascination over the media . . . are the exception, not the rule; they constitute not more than ten per cent of the full.”
Baroness Smith of Malvern, the Education Minister and a former Home Secretary under Gordon Brown, said that the Government would proceed to have “a crucial and constructive relationship” with the 2 bodies. “But some people listening to this debate might need thought that the intention was to completely get rid of the private sector.”
She continued: “Private education will not be an option for many . . . people and, unlike the last Government, we won’t construct public policy across the expectation that public services will fail our kids.”
Lady Smith insisted that the effect of the fee changes had been assessed, and that evaluation suggested that not all parents would face 20-per-cent higher fees, and that pupils wouldn’t move.
On SEND provision, she said: “There is excellence within the private sector in independent special schools. Such excellence is the explanation why . . . that place is paid for by the local authority. The local authority may have the flexibility to reclaim the VAT placed on that fee; so there can be no impact on the parents of those children with essentially the most acute special educational needs.”
