Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540
- 559)
WEDNESDAY 30 JUNE 2004
DR MARTIN
STEPHEN, DR
ANTHONY SELDON,
SIR EWAN
HARPER, MR
JONATHAN SHEPHARD
AND MR
JACK JONES
Q540 Chairman: I would like to ask
you two points of information and if you have not got the answers
now maybe you could supply them. Firstly, what percentage of your
patients pay for their treatment or get private health assurance,
and secondly, receive your services for free because they are
NHS patients and you are doing contractual work?
Mr Jones: I would be more than
happy to provide that information. I can give you an indication.
In 2003 10% of our patients received treatment free at the point
of delivery, ie they were patients that we contracted with the
National Health Service for.
Q541 Chairman: You got paid for it
but you provide the services for free?
Mr Jones: Correct.
Q542 Chairman: Have you got some
equivalent to a scholarship or a bursary whereby you provide a
service that some would regard as charitable for nothing?
Mr Jones: No.
Q543 Chairman: How many of your patients
come from overseas?
Mr Jones: I do not have any statistics
but I would suggest it is less than 1%.
Q544 Chairman: Is it a growing proportion?
Mr Jones: No, it is not.
Q545 Chairman: It is falling, is
it?
Mr Jones: We have never measured
it because it has never been a market. We are committed to providing
services to the local communities in which we have established
Nuffield Hospitals rather than trying to attract patients from
overseas to use those hospitals.
Q546 Chairman: The ISC say in their
evidence that you earn £283 million to the economy and to
individual schools as a consequence of presumably wealthy parents
from overseas sending their children to independent schools. Is
that right?
Mr Shephard: That is correct,
yes. For the sector as a whole it is £315 million and that
has been scaled down for the schools that are charitable.
Q547 Chairman: There might be a question
in some people's minds about why organisations should receive
tax benefits in part at least to provide those sorts of services
to the wealthy parents of children from overseas.
Mr Shephard: There is a range
of wealth among the parents in all our schools. There are some
who are very rich but a lot of them are not, a lot of them are
having to scrimp and save to raise the fees.
Q548 Chairman: From overseas?
Mr Shephard: No, this is generally.
Q549 Chairman: But from overseas?
Mr Shephard: I have no information
on that, but I would assume that they are relatively well off.
Q550 Chairman: I do not want an individual
example, I want an answer for the sector as a whole. You think
that the vast majority of children who come from overseas to independent
schools must be from relatively wealthy backgrounds because presumably
they are fee paying rather than bursary receiving, is that right?
Mr Shephard: Chetham's does provide
bursaries to children particularly from overseas.
Q551 Chairman: Is that an exception
or the rule?
Mr Shephard: I would say that
is probably an exception.
Dr Stephen: What is true is that
there has been an increasing movement again over the past 10 years
to support children from poor backgrounds from Eastern Europe.
This is a sector-wide initiative. We do not have figures for it.
I can name from memory five schools that have taken, for example,
political refugees and operate schemes with specific countries,
particularly with Eastern Europe and with Africa.
Q552 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: I
asked earlier on about the contribution that the sector makes
to what one might broadly call specialist education and I am not
talking about specialist ability exclusively but also what one
might call specialist disability. You make the point in your evidence
that the independent sector is contributing significantly to the
education of people with needs of various kinds. Can you give
us any statistical evidence about what proportion of your membership
is doing that, ie providing an education which, because of its
nature and the nature of the pupils who are coming into it, whether
that is to do with ability or disability, is not available generally
within the maintained sector?
Mr Shephard: We know that 12%
of our pupils have special needs.
Q553 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: That
statistic is relevant only if we know what percentage of students
within the maintained sector have special needs because it could
look very small relatively speaking.
Mr Shephard: If you are dealing
with minority subjects, we have now to include maths and science
as subjects where the provision in the maintained sector is not
particularly good.
Dr Stephen: The independent sector
is now providing a wholly disproportionate number of those with
"A" grades in maths, physics and chemistry. In some
cases some of the figures suggest towards 50% of all candidates
in the UK gain top grades in the sciences. The independent sector,
if we are looking just at this area of subject specialisation
which if you like could be argued as a special need, has a tremendous
record in the teaching of further maths, the teaching of single
subject sciences and also the teaching of modern languages, including
Russian, Arabic, Chinese, in other words the new vogue modern
languages but also in the continued teaching of classics. There
are also places like the Royal College for the Blind which comes
under the independent sector, Cheatham School of Music and the
other music schools. I do not know whether you would decide to
include as special provisions some of the more radical schools.
I would illustrate Frensham Heights for instance.
Q554 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: What
I am interested in, Chairman, is what is the independent sector
doing that the maintained sector either is not doing or cannot
do which would contribute to the argument that you are making
for the continued charitable status of a significant proportion
of the independent sector at least?
Dr Stephen: Am I allowed to give
an answer that is entirely personal but I think is representative?
When my youngest son was diagnosed as dyslexic, despite being
statemented in his maintained primary school I could not obtain
specialist treatment for him within the maintained sector. I sent
him to an independent dyslexic unit which has been the saving
of his life. I do not think I am unrepresentative.
Q555 Lord Sainsbury of Preston: Could
I go back to the point that was made by Dr Seldon, which was that
a differentiation should be made in what is 3% or 5% of private
education, where distinctly rich endowed schools should be treated
differently so far as charitable status is concerned. I would
like to ask Dr Stephen his reaction to that?
Dr Stephen: My reaction is that
I disagree with almost everything Anthony says but would fight
to the death for his right to say it and in so doing justify the
existence of the independent sector. I do think in this instance
Anthony is wrong. Anthony is very fortunate in one respect in
that he can only talk for himself and Brighton College; as Chairman
of HMMC I am talking for the whole sector.
Q556 Chairman: You are wearing two
hats.
Dr Stephen: If I may speak for
the sector as a whole. One of the schools that I am not going
to name, Anthony is not going to name and it is probably going
to be the longest running saga in this hearing actually has 37
separate community projects operating. I do not believe that the
so-called elitist schools have not done their bit. Indeed, one
of those schools, which is probably in the minds of all those
round this table, is offering over 20% of its places as bursary
free places and has a magnificent record. So, yes, possibly 3
to 5% of the independent sector is privileged by endowment. I
believe they have worked their socks off to justify their existence.
Dr Seldon: I do not agree with
that and I think the great majority of independent school heads
would disagree too.
Dr Stephen: I challenge that.
Dr Seldon: I would make this distinction
and it comes back to a question that we had earlier about why
parents choose. Parents choose schools like Brighton College—I
would say 95%—not for elitist, snobby reasons. Refugees
who come to schools like mine from the state sector come; (1)
for discipline reasons, (2) because they feel their children are
not being stretched, and (3) because they are highly talented
at music or at sport and they feel that there is insufficient
stimulus at the state school. If the state sector was infinitely
better than it currently is—and there are some outstanding
state schools and the best state schools are better than a lot
of independent schools—or if there was what I would like
to have, which is you would get rid of state schools and everybody
would be independent, you would find that people would bleed away
from fee paying schools. Parents are simply there making the sacrifices
because to them there is nothing more important in their lives
than their children, the happiness of their children and their
children's progress. There are some schools where people are selecting
them—and I am only speaking as an individual, although I
happen to believe that a lot of other independent school heads
share this view—for socially exclusive reasons. As one parent
said who came to Brighton College, "You don't have spiky
children in your school," and I said, "Yes, we do."
I market my school as an unsnobby school and I think it has a
very good cross-section. That is a very real distinction. The
ISC may not like that but I believe that to be true. Those are
the kinds of schools where parents are choosing them for socially
elitist reasons. They are just the kind of schools to whom much
is given and much should be expected, and I am not naming any
names at all.
Q557 Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I
ought to declare an interest in that I have done legal work for
Nuffield Hospitals and my firm currently does work for ISC. Mr
Jones, as far as I can see what you are saying in terms of public
benefit vis-a"-vis your hospitals is that what it
comes down to is that you save the Exchequer a huge amount of
money by treating patients who otherwise they would have to treat,
but apart from that you have given no indication of any conventionally
charitable benefit. For example, there is no free treatment—I
am not talking about the NHS patients you get paid for; you do
not use volunteers and you pay your consultants the going rates.
Is that a fair summary?
Mr Jones: It is my understanding
that the improvement in the health of citizens of the UK is in
itself charitable.
Q558 Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I
accept that.
Mr Jones: What differentiates
us is that we do not have shareholders and we are not distributing
profits.
Q559 Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I
understand that. Broadly what I have said you would concur with,
would you?
Mr Jones: Yes.
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