With fees of around £14,000 a term, or £44,000 a year, and with 18% of English pupils attending them, you’d think private schools had enough money to function without the need for taxpayer's money. And you’re probably right, but that doesn’t stop them from registering as charities, and taking taxpayers' money to give those already fortunate pupils, a huge step up.

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In 2022, according to the Government, around half of independent schools in England were registered as charities. This qualifies them to receive tax advantages, and these advantages equated to 6% of England’s total state school budget in 2020 and 2021. Winchester College for example – Rishi Sunak's old haunt, has been handed 6 million pounds of taxpayers’ money this year alone.

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They also benefit from an 80% discount on business rates, while the VAT is removed from school fees. That VAT is supposed to be paid back through offering bursaries to students who can’t afford to go to an independent school, but, recent research has found that the majority of these bursaries don’t even go to lower income families, since the costs are still far too high for them.

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The good news however, is that educational based charities need to demonstrate how their work goes towards to benefiting the public. The bad news? There’s no official line on what this actually means.

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So, what are some examples of their charity work?

A lot of what is considered as charity work for these schools, consists of opening up their facilities to the community, but recent research by openDemocracy has found that some schools claim activities such as WW2 bunker tours, or offering access to fossil collections, are all examples of their community work. A private London Girls’ School even listed a student’s charitable Instagram account as their charity work in 2020.

 

What happens if their charity status is removed?

There’s a huge misconception that if the charity statuses were to be removed, their fees would go up, and there would be a massive, child shaped tidal wave that’ll crash into the already dilapidated state schools. This would result in degradation of resources, bigger classes and more pupils under less teachers. So, these private schools benefit us all right?

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Wrong.

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The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) recently reported only 3-7% of families would need to rethink their children’s places in these schools. It also discovered that removing the tax breaks from private schools – including VAT and relief from business rates, would raise around £1.6 billion a year in extra tax revenue – money that could go towards improving state schools

 

The other concern is that these schools will be too expensive for middle-class families if the fees go up. However, only the very top earners can afford today’s fees, so it’ll just effect the bottom part of the top 5% earners. Not exactly the apotheosis of middle class.

 

What’s the likelihood of their charity statuses being stripped away?

Labour did try to force a binding vote for private schools to be stripped of their charitable statuses, however, it failed by 303 to 197, and was dismissed by many Conservative MPs. Education secretary, Gillian Keegan, branded it ‘the policy of envy’ – in other words, Labour are just jealous (the official astute defence of the out of touch), while Rishi Sunak has claimed that this would be an attack on’ millions of hard working people’ – which yet again, demonstrates his chronic lack of comprehension about the people he’s supposed to be working for, since the average fees alone are half of what the average person earns per year – before tax.

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However, Labour has vowed to strip them of their “inexcusable” charitable status if they win the next election.

 

The cards are stacked against state school pupils

All pupils are entitled to the same opportunities regardless of their schooling, however, we know this isn’t the case. A disproportionate amount of Oxbridge students have been privately educated, and a large portion of our government (65% of Rishi’s cabinet) were also privately educated.

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Universities are also subsidised by the government -  so even the higher education of these privately educated pupils is, through taxes, still being paid for by those pupils who went to state school. Therefore, if a child’s parents have more money, they have a far better opportunity of making it to prestigious universities and obtaining a high-end job in public service. Keeping the top jobs exclusive to those who can pay their way to the top.

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Something needs to change

Regardless of whether they keep their charity status or not, there at least needs to be tougher rules around what qualifies as charity work in order to benefit from these tax breaks, VAT and business rates relief. Doing the bare minimum makes a mockery of the system, and truly guffaws in the face of honest altruism, when so many struggling state schools are in dire need of funding. Particularly when - while they’re posting on Instagram, touring WW2 bunkers, or whatever vapid tick box activity they’re undertaking - they’re simultaneously hiring the likes of Nigel Farage to speak to their students in talks that result in its audience heckling and jeering at  state school girls (yes that happened – good ol’ Eton, ever propping up classism and the patriarchy). Because it doesn’t matter what anyone says, as much as you think offering a charitable hand out to an obsolete, destitute, cancerous pile of decaying rot (who is by the way, part of the elite, no matter how much they’ve recently protested) to spew its misogynist bacteria to the younger, malleable generation, is charity work, it really is not.

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There’s also the issue of the lack of compassion within these private school alumni when it comes to empathising with the majority of the country (who can forget Rishi not knowing how to put petrol in a car? But then he doesn’t have working class friends, scoff), and their obvious disdain for those who don’t have it as easy as they did. We need decision makers who understand the plight of the average person, so they can cease recommending nonsensical folly like cancelling Netflix, or not buying Starbucks, while they hike up our food and energy prices. Because as it stands, these private school fortunates have no idea why people are struggling and they simply do not care. But then it’s easy to silence your cognitive dissonance when you’ve been educated to believe that those born into lower income families are there because they didn't work hard enough as a foetus.