Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
100-119)
DAME JUDITH
MAYHEW JONAS,
DR ANTHONY
SELDON AND
SIR SIMON
JENKINS
2 JULY 2008
Q100 Chairman: But you would expect
some schools currently not to pass this test?
Sir Simon Jenkins: I do not see
why they should get tax relief; it is as simple as that. Most
schools will divide themselves into trading and non-trading accounts
and will be doing things that enable them to pass the test of
the Charity Commission in some but not in other respects. It is
not beyond the wit of a well-run organisation to handle this particular
problem.
Q101 Mr Liddell-Grainger: There is
something slightly bizarre in what you have said. Surely, this
is an attempt to move schools away from the appalling public sector
educational policy that we have, is it not? It is just a cynical
attempt to use excellence, a first-class system, to try to pull
up a failing system, is it not?
Sir Simon Jenkins: If I was running
Rolls-Royce I might say the same. Why should I pay taxes if I
am running Rolls-Royce which is a first-class company? It may
be an excellent restaurant or hospital. I think that the word
"charity" must carry meaning and if we debase it and
say that it just means whether something is any good we have ended
the concept of a charity.
Q102 Mr Liddell-Grainger: But Rolls-Royce
is an elite company. Is there anything wrong with elitism?
Sir Simon Jenkins: No, but why
should elitism be tax-deductible?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: It is
important to recognise that independent schools that are charities
plough any money they make back into education, whereas independent
schools that are companies obviously pay shareholders and others,
so there is a difference. In a sense, what they are doing is putting
everything back into education and educational standards, so they
are not with profits organisations; they are not-for-profit organisations,
but the basic point is that education is a charitable purpose
per se and that has not changed.
Sir Simon Jenkins: So is public
housing. A well-run housing association makes absolutely sure
it does not make a profit. It pays its staff well; it reinvests
all its so-called surplus in its activities. The difference between
a housing association and a public school is that people who benefit
from it are those in receipt of affordable homes. I therefore
think that a housing association is entitled to call itself a
charity. The fact that the surplus goes into different activities
in these different operations is to my mind neither here nor there.
We all know how we handle profits.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: One
in four pupils in the independent sector comes from a postcode
which is on or below the national average income. One of the areas
that people often neglect when talking about the independent system
is special educational needs (SEN) schools. 50 % of SEN schools
are independent and much of their funding comes from the public
sector. Why are they independent? They are independent because
of pupil/teacher ratios and the specialist care that is needed.
When we talk about the independent sector we need to recognise
that that represents also 50 % of SEN schools, so it is not all
about the so-called elite schools that we are talking about.
Sir Simon Jenkins: That to my
mind is a good example of a charitable activity.
Q103 Chairman: Plainly, they will
have no difficulty passing the test?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Absolutely
not, but it is often forgotten that those schools are part of
the independent sector.
Q104 Paul Flynn: But why should the
SEN schools in your sector get a subsidy from the taxpayers that
equally good schools in the public sector which do very similar
work do not get?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: They
get a subsidy.
Q105 Paul Flynn: But they do not
get charitable status?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: But
they get much more of a public subsidy. These ones do not get
a public subsidy.
Q106 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Dr Seldon,
you tell us that a lot of public schools want to cop out of the
exam system because they do not think it is good enough. You feel
that the way the marking is done is not up to standard; there
are lots of things in the education system that you want to get
out of because you just feel that the system is failing. Is that
a fair synopsis?
Dr Seldon: I believe it to be
true that the state sector is full of incredibly hard working
and capable men and women who have made some strides forward in
the past 11 years but insufficient for the money invested. I think
that the whole approach is wrong. I do not believe that to continue
to have schools that are wholly run by the state will be as efficient
as the independent model. In answering your question I am trying
to find the relevance to the topic of debate.
Q107 Mr Liddell-Grainger: The reason
I ask is quite simply that at the end of the day I am not convinced
that this is not a political piece of shenanigan. We see the education
system in this country slipping, for whatever reason, and envious
eyes look at the public school system because it is excellent
and works well. Unlike Sir Simon, I still do not believe there
is not some sort of political shenanigan behind it and that is
why I am asking the question. You are copping out of it because
of the failing system and it has become worse in the past few
years by trying to deal with exams in a different way because
you do not feel that you are feeding the best through to universities
and beyond.
Dr Seldon: As Sir Simon Jenkins
mentioned, one of the great shames of education in the past 20
years has been the focus on exams which has narrowed down education
and changed it from a more liberal holistic process of educating
the whole child, which to some extent it was, into the exam factories
eloquently described, if perhaps in a slightly exaggerated way,
by Sir Simon. This is not just a British phenomenon: the world
over you measure schools and heads and teachers by their ability
to get their kids through exams. We believe that every child possesses
eight intelligences. The job of a good school, particularly one
that educates children from less privileged backgrounds, is to
educate all those eight aptitudes or intelligences. If it does
not happen when at school when will it happen? It will not. That
is why many children who leave schools are capable of leading
just half a life, if that.
Q108 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Do you
see that becoming more exasperated with the Charity Commission
saying that more must be done to take up that differential? Do
you think they will be pushed harder to try to take up the slack?
Dr Seldon: It cuts so many ways,
but I think one benefit that state schools can learn from independent
schools is breadth. Even though independent schools have to some
extent narrowed down teaching, lessons can become so deadly dull
when you teach pupils for the exam rather than for the sake of
the subject, but I believe there is far more pure teaching and
greater breadth of teaching within the independent sector, and
how odd that is when these children come from backgrounds where
to a greater extent parents take them off to cello lessons and
dancing classes and they learn how to speak in public and develop
all these intelligences. I think we should talk much more. Whether
or not there is a political agenda behind it I do not know.
Sir Simon Jenkins: I am beginning
to think that I am in the wrong Select Committee. I thought we
were talking about charities. I have no problem with the quality
of schools. I am sure Dr Seldon runs an excellent school, and
lots of state schools are also very good. We can talk about that
all night, but we are arguing about charitable status.
Q109 Mr Liddell-Grainger: But, Sir
Simon, do you not think that one of the reasons the Government
wants to change charitable status and pressurise the independent
sector of which you and the others are part is because they feel
that for very little money and few problems they can tap into
a resource to help make up the differential?
Sir Simon Jenkins: You are asking
me a political question. Although I am prepared to believe the
venality of any government, I just do not happen to think that
it applies here. I have read the document and I thought it a perfectly
reasonable request in effect on the part of what might be called
the custodians of charitable status in this country that one of
its fairly prominent customers should justify itself. I am sure
you can impute political motives into anything but I do not think
it is the case here. I thought it was an anomaly when I was governor
of one of these schools. The anomaly can be sorted out without
too much aggravation or acrimony on the part of the schools and
I believe it will be and we will regard it as having been an anomaly
in the past.
Q110 Kelvin Hopkins: To my simple
mind the word "charity" implies voluntary contributions
to help the less well off. The charitable status of public schools
means compulsory contributions by the taxpayer to help the most
well off people in our society. It seems to be the opposite of
charity. Is it not really very strange that we use the term "charitable
status" for privileged public schools?
Sir Simon Jenkins: Historically,
they began to meet precisely the requirement you mention. Eton
was a classic example of that. In the 19th century on the whole
they evolved into academies for children of the middle class:
the rich were educating their own. That has changed today. It
has evolved into a situation which is pretty indefensible and
that is why I take it this issue has arisen. Whether or not it
does any good to impute motives or look only at schools that educate
the children of the rich I do not know. As Dame Judith says, a
lot of these schools genuinely do good work and happen to be independent.
I do not see any problem with that. They say they can define the
extent to which they honour the previous definition of being a
charity. That is something that a lot of these schools can do;
some will not be able to and will have a problem, but the criterion
is fairly clear and we still understand what it means. I believe
that the independent sector has to grin and bear it.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: But
charity law has always recognised that charities can charge fees.
This applies not just to the education sector and schools and
universities; arts organisations and certain types of health institutions
are charities that charge fees and that has never been questioned.
When Parliament passed the 2006 Act it did not raise the issue
about whether charities could or could not charge fees because
quite a broad range of them have always charged fees and that
has been regarded as acceptable. It is not unique to the schools
sector.
Sir Simon Jenkins: Is Covent Garden
a charity?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Yes,
I happen to chair the Royal Opera House as well. I believe that
next week you are taking evidence from arts institutions. Luckily
for you, I shall not be appearing again, but most of the arts
institutions in this country are charities and they charge fees.
In many other areas you find institutions with charitable status
charging fees because that is the way in which they are able to
raise the funds to do what is necessary. The difference is that
they plough their money back into the institution rather than
distribute it for profit.
Sir Simon Jenkins: But "not
for profit" is an American definition of a tax deductible
organisation. The fact that it does not make a profit is not considered
charitable but worthy of tax deduction. I am aware that American
public financiers think that is crazy. If we go down the route
of saying that any body that does not make a profit is entitled
to call itself a charity we just abuse the term. I would be interested
to hear from Covent Garden. I sit on Covent Garden and I am not
poor. I am the beneficiary not just of tax deductibility but a
thundering great subsidy. I wonder sometimes what good that is
doing to the poor.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We will
meet next week!
Q111 Kelvin Hopkins: I think we blur
the argument by speaking of the arts. The arts have always had
to be subsidised by the church, the state, business or whatever
because they would not exist without that. Societies without arts
become impoverished. I also love opera, but that is a separate
matter. Education by and large is provided by the state. Private
education is for a very small number of very rich people. As Sir
Simon said in his article, Eton was set up for 70 poor and needy
people from the locality. My old posh grammar school used to be
the same; it is now very selective and an elite grammar school.
It desperately wanted to be a public school but could not be because
its charter said that it had to be free for the poor. It was regarded
as a great tragedy that it never became a fee-paying school. Speaking
for myself, I am glad it did not. I do not see the case for public
schools having charitable status. I am not even supportive of
the idea of fee-paying schools at all. If however these schools
as private institutions paid the full cost of education, that
would be acceptable, but charitable status is a subsidy from the
taxpayer, effectively tax relief to the richest in our society
to help them get an even better education than the best that state
schools can provide.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Having
said that we know one in four comes from average or below average
postcodes we are not talking about just the very rich in society.
If we also take the SEN children we get a much greater mix in
the independent sector than you believe the elite schools give.
But it is vitally important to recognise that these schools have
a far greater social mix than you first think and that they are
doing some things that cannot be done in the maintained sector.
Q112 Kelvin Hopkins: We do not have
the statistics here to show the incomes of parents of youngsters
at public schools, but I suspect that the overwhelming majority
are pretty well off. My father got a bursary to a posh school
when he was a kid. There were two in the whole of Leicester and
he got one of them. It did not alter the fact that it was very
selective and privileged.
Dr Seldon: As you suggest, we
do not have the figures, but from my experience I have seen many
parents struggle. Both parents work; they take jobs as cab drivers
at evenings and weekends to pay the fees. Equally, I have been
in state schools, for example last week, where I sense from the
accents of the kids I meet that the income base of those schools
is at least as high if not higher than that of some independent
schools which I have visited. Dame Judith mentioned one in four
and that is quite significant. Obviously, one would want to probe
that further, but it seems to be quite compelling. I wish we had
more data because it would make the point which I feel is true
and reflects my own experience, namely it is a myth that every
independent school is chock full of upper middle-class parents.
It just ain't true. I cite Girls' Day School Trust schools where
the fees maybe £8,000 or less a year. Those open it up not
to 7% but perhaps 40, 50 or 60 % of the population. If we follow
through Mr Hopkins' point and get rid of charitable status altogether
the incentive for some but not a lot to engage in partnership
activity will decline and as a consequence we will have an even
more ghetto-ised independent sector and state sector. I think
that would be bad. We should not seek to drive these sectors apart
but try powerfully to get them together. There is no more damaging
divide in society today than this one in economic and social terms
and it is utterly avoidable.
Q113 Kelvin Hopkins: You are making
an argument for the abolition of private education.
Dr Seldon: Or the abolition of
state education.
Q114 Kelvin Hopkins: There are two
further questions, one to do with SEN schools. They are for less
fortunate people and they need assistance, but if wealthier people
can buy better provision for their SEN children than people in
the state sector again it creates inequalities. SEN education
ought to be a wholly public service for everyone and provided
the best possible standard, not one where a second-class service
is provided for some kids and the private schools provide a first-class
service for others.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Most
of the SEN children in independent schools are funded by local
authorities, not parents. Whether the child goes to an independent
school or a maintained school is a choice made by the local authority
together with the parents. From that point of view it is fairly
evenly balanced between the two.
Q115 Kelvin Hopkins: It is almost
a state boarding school?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Absolutely.
Q116 Kelvin Hopkins: If charitable
status was removed, how much would be lost to independent schools?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: It would
be £100 million.
Q117 Kelvin Hopkins: By how much
would fees have to go up?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: It is
not a huge amount; it is about £200 per pupil. If you abolished
them you would have to find another £2.5 billion to educate
the children from the independent sector in the state sector which
might cause a crisis.
Q118 Chairman: Dr Seldon tells us
that it would have a good effect on the state sector and that
is why he does not want to go down the bursary route; it creams
people off.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: To pay
for all that education might have an effect on the public finances.
We estimate that £2.5 billion is saved by the independent
sector in exchange for £100 million in tax breaks.
Sir Simon Jenkins: They are not
closing down the schools, are they?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: No,
except that they would have to be paid for out of the Exchequer.
Q119 Kelvin Hopkins: What you are
saying is that if we remove charitable status it will cost parents
another £200 per pupil per year or term or whatever more.
They would carry on as before; we would not have to spend £2.5
billion educating these extra children because they would carry
on. A small number at the margins would go into the state sector
because they could not afford it but the majority would just pay
more.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: My question
back to you would be: why single out schools? Would you do this
to universities and university colleges, particularly Oxford and
Cambridge? Would you remove their charitable status?
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