DCH 27 Eileen Brown
Eileen Brown 9 Buckfast Avenue Bedford MK4I BRO
eileenpeter@ukonline.co.uk 01234
267909
29thMay 2004
Francine Graham
Clerk, Joint Committee on the Draft Charities Bill
Scrutiny Unit
Room G10
7 Millbank
London SWIP35A
Comments re Draft Charities Bill
Charitable Status of Private
Schools
Dear Madam,
I wish to offer some points about the charitable
status currently enjoyed by private schools, which
are, I believe, pertinent to the review currently
being undertaken. An important issue relates to the affording
of a general public good as a condition of the awarding of charitable
status. I would draw attention to the situation of education in
Bedford.
Four schools, currently enjoying charitable status,
are run by the Harpur Trust. They are all fee paying schools and
therefore do not offer an education available for the general
school population. In itself that appears to be a negation of
the intention of the original Trust, founded to benefit all the
children of Bedford. Entrance to these schools is governed by
selective examination and the ability/willingness to pay fees.
The intake of public sector schools is unbalanced by the "creaming
off' of pupils both by the charging of fees and the application
of entrance examinations. This means that there are fewer high
ability pupils in public sector schools than there are in a full
cohort of the school population, an unhelpful position as the
regards the functioning of schools providing education for the
greater part of the school population.
One item for consideration concerns the staffing
of the fee paying schools. Most, if not all, of the teachers have
themselves benefited from a higher education heavily subsidised
at public expense. The private schools are able to offer higher
salaries to teachers, with the added advantage of paying reduced
fees for their children attending Trust schools. In that way there
is a heavy inducement for teachers to accept posts that remove
them from serving in the public sector, with consequent disadvantage
to the staffing pool available for the benefit of most local pupils.
This cannot be held to afford a general public good. Rather does
it have a negative effect for the majority of schools.
The financial accounts of the Trust schools indicate
that such support as is given to the public sector of Education
represents a very small proportion of overall income and some
of what is offered attracts government funding. If it is enough
to allow them to retain charitable status it would appear to be
a shrewd move on their part, a spratto catch a mackerel, in popular
parlance.
Students who are not performing to academic norms
are encouraged to leave Harpur schools and therefore will be returned
to the state sector — a
useful device for keeping performance ratings high.
There is active recruiting of fee paying pupils from
affluent foreign families abroad. It would seem anomalous that
the charitable resources of the United Kingdom be directed to
subsidising the education of the children of wealthy foreign nationals
rather than their being used for developing the basic provisions
lacked by many peoples in need of basic education in the developing
world.
These schools, which appear to be run on clearly
business lines, do not in my opinion justify the financial advantage
afforded by charitable status.
Yours faithfully,
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