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Private schools consider legal bid to preserve charity status
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent11 Aug 2009
A legal challenge could be mounted by independent schools to preserve their charitable status and tax breaks worth £100 million a year.
David Lyscom, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, believes there may be grounds to test the requirement that private schools pass a "public benefit test" in order to retain their privileged status.
Normally this requirement relates to the number of bursaries provided by fee-paying schools to poorer children. But Mr Lyscom said independent schools also saved the taxpayer £3 billion to £4 billion a year by educating pupils who would otherwise have gone to state schools - including many special needs pupils.
The ISC is considering whether to challenge in the courts the Charity Commission's interpretation of the "public benefit test", introduced in the Charities Act 2006.
Mr Lyscom told the Guardian: "The commission asks what these schools are doing for the poor. The answer is the poor are not paying as much tax as they otherwise would." He added: "The independent sector now provides almost half of all special educational needs. It is keeping alive high quality in subject areas that are vital in the UK for the next 50 years. These are the future leaders who will give the UK economic success."
The Charity Commission has told two independent schools, in Derbyshire and Lancashire, to rethink the number of bursaries they offer or risk losing charitable status.
The schools had allocated less than one per cent of their income to bursaries.
Reader views (5)
Sounds like the tax payer is getting a bargain. £100 million of tax perks versus a saving of £3 to £4 billion to the tax payer. Surely that is enough to give private schools charitable status. Envy versus finacial common sense to leave well alone.
- Frank, Portsmouth, 11/08/2009 19:29
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What about hospitals with charitable status? There are some private hospitals who are charities who use their profits to subsidise hospices. That's what I call public benefit. There are others like Nuffield Hospitals and the London Clinic who are huge businesses that get mega tax breaks from their charitable status who don't offer free beds and ops for the poor and do sod all for free. Ain't they taking the piss out of 'charity' by being subsidised by the tax payers?
- Trevor, London, 11/08/2009 15:30
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Ok,enough offensive comments about single parents by Mark, above. I'm a single parent & have worked all my life, only had a few weeks off after my son, now 17, was born. I have a huge circle of single parent professional friends, all of whom, like me have always worked...even so, despite all being graduates/professionals, none of us have the surplus money to afford private education..and all our kids have done well at state schools- most of them are now doing A levels..
- Singleparent& Working, Essex, 11/08/2009 13:37
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The Labour government has dumbed down education in the country so much that smart kids and kids with parents who want the next generation to do better than them opt for private schooling. My son's private primary school has 1/3 of it's pupils from minority backgrounds, most paying full tuition fees as good education is highly valued by hard working middle-class people. Yet once again the Labour government is trying to destroy any sense of people feeling they can get ahead in the UK - better for us all to give up work and live off the state as single parents.
- Mark, London, 11/08/2009 12:49
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Why stop at schools? Restaurants like The Ivy could give food away to one or two impoverished diners (me, for example) and then be allowed to register as charities, too. Cinemas, airlines, BUPA - the possibility is endless!
- Roz, France, 11/08/2009 09:32
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