Will higher independent school fees see a squeeze on Kent's grammars?
County council warns it may not be able to guarantee selective places
What, if anything, will be the impact of Labour’s proposal to end the charitable status of fee-paying independent schools on the county’s grammar schools?
To date, Kent County Council has kept relatively quiet over the issue but the potential for even greater competition for places at the 31 remaining grammar schools has not been completely ignored.
A closer look at KCC’s five-year education plan…
In the authority’s latest five-year education plan which sets out how the council will deal with meeting the demand for new secondary and primary school places, the potential for an even greater squeeze on selective schools is acknowledged.
The plan flags up the stark possibility of Kent County Council being unable to offer places at some grammar schoold to children even though they have passed the eleven plus:
“Any options for creating additional selective capacity will be extremely challenging and KCC may only be able to ensure that the Local Authority statutory duty to provide sufficient secondary places, of any type, is met.”
According to the latest version of the commissioning plan, it is unclear the extent to which the potential switch from private schools to state schools will affect admission numbers:
“One further factor to monitor during the lifetime of this KCP is the level of displacement of children from independent schools into the maintained sector arising from the government’s decision to impose VAT on independent school fees. Due to these additional factors, a change in the overall school-aged population in the county does not on its own necessarily translate into the same change in the number of children on the rolls of schools in Kent.”
Among those areas seeing a projected increased demand are Dartford and North West Kent, with variations in the shortfall of places at most selective schools at some point of the plan.
However, KCC says options for absorbing the increase will be ‘logistically challenging’.
Satellite Expansions
As to the financial costs of building a satellite school managed by an existing grammar, KCC says it could be in excess of £35m - a figure that does not include the costs of acquiring a site.
“The key constraints would be identifying both boys and girls grammar schools willing to operate a satellite provision on a shared site, identifying land to accommodate the provisions, obtaining DfE approval and obtaining the requisite capital funding.”
Officers say that while KCC will pursue a search for a site in north Kent, it cannot make any specific promises.
Cllr Rory Love, the Conservative cabinet member responsible for schools, says the authority will be closely monitoring the impact. “One new factor is the potential level of displacement of pupils from the independent sector into the maintained sector, arising from the government’s [proposal] to tax education through the imposition of VAT on independent school fees and we will be monitoring that closely.”
The government has insisted its policy will not lead to the closure of independent schools and that the impact will be negligible.
It also argues that the extra money raised will be invested in improving state schools.
Under the plan, the standard 20% VAT rate will be added to private school fees from 1 January 2025. Private schools that are charities will lose charitable business rates relief – which provides an 80% discount on the rates they pay on their premises – from April 2025.