The Independent Schools Council received a survey on parents’ responses to VAT on private school fees. It was statistically meaningless, and the authors of the report say this was clear in the report. The ISC then gave the survey results to the Daily Mail without this vital context, and the result was a highly misleading […]

We wrote in January about some of the ways private schools might try to avoid Labour’s proposed 20% VAT on school fees. One approach we mentioned – paying years’ of fees in advance – is now being widely used. We are concerned that schools and parents are not fully understanding the risks that these advance […]

Labour seems set to introduce VAT on private school fees. We thought it would be helpful to set out the ways some private schools might try to avoid VAT, and our assessment of their prospects of success. We’ve identified some approaches which we’ve categorised as “good” (likely to succeed), “bad” (likely to fail) and “ugly” […]