KWC fees.

[Twitch]

4 minutes ago, Max Power said:

No it isn’t, KWC pupils had an online curriculum to follow throughout lockdown.

I know people who may appear wealthy because they work hard to put their kids through KWC, the reality is that they are squeezed, but want the best for them.

i can see how that might appear alien to left leaning politicians and their rabid supporters. 

Sorry Max, you may want the 'best' for your kids but if you can put away £25k per kid for education then you're pretty well off. You don't necessarily have to be a socialist to believe that and your last sentence is just Daily Mail type nonsense.

[HeliX]

6 minutes ago, Max Power said:

No it isn’t, KWC pupils had an online curriculum to follow throughout lockdown.

I know people who may appear wealthy because they work hard to put their kids through KWC, the reality is that they are squeezed, but want the best for them.

i can see how that might appear alien to left leaning politicians and their rabid supporters. 

People should obviously do what's best for their kids and I'm not objecting to that, but if you have 2k a month spare to start with you are not squeezed.

[Roger Mexico]

The truth is that there are two kinds of consultants who produce reports.  The first kind are the specialists who have an in-depth knowledge of a particular area of government services and know how to compare with similar organisations elsewhere.  They will do a lot of research dig out the relevant data (or complain when they're not available) and discuss the practicalities and make careful but practical recommendations.  You do occasionally see such reports commissioned by IOMG: York on the Airport for example or the various Tolson ones on public housing or the one on the swimming pools.  They're usually hidden away in embarrassment because they're entirely constructed of bullshit and might actually lead to actions that could benefit the public.

The other sort are more common and are produced by generalist consultancies such as KPMG. They can be relied on to produce a report with all the current professional jargon that tells the recipients just what they want to hear without making it too obvious.  It will be impressively long and suitably vague and extremely glossy.  And 'reassuringly expensive'.

Beamans are a miniature version of this, normally they specialise in making the case for local government officials to reorganise things and get pay rises (guess who commissions them).  But presumably because of the Killip connection they became to more general go to guys here, who can be relied on to prescribe more committees (usually now called Boards so you can pay the people on them more) more elaborate management structures that pretend to be arms-length and of course more money for all those running them.

I'd hoped that the schools report might be specialised enough to be one of the first sort - they did at least try to find out some data and speak to some of those involved (though only at the higher levels).  But when you look at it, they just apply the methods without much context and using fairly arbitrary criteria.  No doubt expecting the whole thing to be ignored anyway.  The failure to query some of the implausible figures they were given was also telling.  But IOMG rarely use consultants for anything except reassurance and to show they are doing something without actually doing something.

[Ringy Rose]

10 hours ago, Max Power said:

I know people who may appear wealthy because they work hard to put their kids through KWC, the reality is that they are squeezed, but want the best for them.

We have a household income of over £100,000 a year and we can’t afford KWC fees. And we don’t have particularly high expenditure in other areas- our mortgage is fixed at 1.5%, we own our cars outright, etc etc.

Anyone who can afford them may well feel squeezed but they’re certainly not the middle.

Edited August 9 by Ringy Rose

[La Colombe]

16 hours ago, Max Power said:

No it isn’t, KWC pupils had an online curriculum to follow throughout lockdown.

No doubt but state school teachers were setting online work too. I'm assuming it was following their respective curriculum and pupils were expected to follow it. 

[The Phantom]

48 minutes ago, La Colombe said:

No doubt but state school teachers were setting online work too. I'm assuming it was following their respective curriculum and pupils were expected to follow it. 

I think that was the problem.  A lot of assumptions the teachers would do this and that, but no clear unified plan (which it seems KWC did in fact have). 

[Max Power]

19 hours ago, Twitch said:

Sorry Max, you may want the 'best' for your kids but if you can put away £25k per kid for education then you're pretty well off. You don't necessarily have to be a socialist to believe that and your last sentence is just Daily Mail type nonsense.

19 hours ago, HeliX said:

People should obviously do what's best for their kids and I'm not objecting to that, but if you have 2k a month spare to start with you are not squeezed.

I know a couple of families who work extremely hard to put their kids through KWC. They don’t fly away on expensive holidays, drive brand new his and hers Range Rovers, organise huge parties for all as sundry. They are obviously not on the breadline and squeezed to that extent, but an increase in fees through VAT would see at least one of them return their kid to state school. Taking one of those, apparently, rare spaces up and costing the taxpayer £8700. 

KWC is already an expensive option, there are better schools in the UK with lower fees.

[Meoir Shee]

39 minutes ago, Max Power said:

Taking one of those, apparently, rare spaces up and costing the taxpayer £8700. 

No, the total spend by DESC will rise by a very, very small amount, I would suggest almost £zero.  You continue to confuse average cost with marginal cost.  The marginal cost to the taxpayer of one extra pupil in the state education system will be negligible.  

[Ringy Rose]

56 minutes ago, Max Power said:

They are obviously not on the breadline and squeezed to that extent, but an increase in fees through VAT would see at least one of them return their kid to state school. Taking one of those, apparently, rare spaces up and costing the taxpayer £8700. 

The marginal cost of a pupil returning to the state sector is negligible. It’s certainly nowhere near £8700.

If they can afford KWC fees they’re about as far removed from the breadline as is possible. My household income is north of £100k, I have low overheads, and I couldn’t afford KWC fees; I reckon it’d have to be north of £150k before I’d be in a position to scrimp to afford it.

KWC non-boarding fees have gone up by over five grand in three years. Nobody has abandoned KWC. But charging VAT is unfair and will result in people abandoning the sector. Hmm.

Edited August 9 by Ringy Rose

[Max Power]

10 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

The marginal cost of a pupil returning to the state sector is negligible. It’s certainly nowhere near £8700.

If they can afford KWC fees they’re about as far removed from the breadline as is possible. My household income is north of £100k, I have low overheads, and I couldn’t afford KWC fees; I reckon it’d have to be north of £150k before I’d be in a position to scrimp to afford it.

KWC non-boarding fees have gone up by over five grand in three years. Nobody has abandoned KWC. But charging VAT is unfair and will result in people abandoning the sector. Hmm.

I’m not anywhere near the income league that I could ever afford to put a child through private school, but there’s something akin to a wealth tax to tax those who do, and are not taking up state school places? I quoted £8700 from another post which stated that is what it costs? The fact is that larger class sizes affects a child’s education, costs aside! 
to say that the extra VAT would be invested in education is another myth, that never happens as we all know!

I think it is unfair tax yes, why not be less blatantly communist about it?

 

[Gizo]

Max power crying his little eyes out that some privileged child might have to go to a state school and it might cost the taxpayer more because of it.

and yet his little death race and it’s astronomical taxpayer costs completely misses his radar. Unbelievable stuff. 

[A fool and his money.....]

19 minutes ago, Gizo said:

Max power crying his little eyes out that some privileged child might have to go to a state school and it might cost the taxpayer more because of it.

and yet his little death race and it’s astronomical taxpayer costs completely misses his radar. Unbelievable stuff. 

I think you'd have a good case to ask for all your money back from wherever you were educated.

[A fool and his money.....]

54 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I’m not anywhere near the income league that I could ever afford to put a child through private school, but there’s something akin to a wealth tax to tax those who do, and are not taking up state school places? I quoted £8700 from another post which stated that is what it costs? The fact is that larger class sizes affects a child’s education, costs aside! 
to say that the extra VAT would be invested in education is another myth, that never happens as we all know!

I think it is unfair tax yes, why not be less blatantly communist about it?

 

It's not being communist though is it. My understanding is that VAT is pretty much charged on anything which either isn't essential, or isn't something the government particularly want to encourage.

So food from the supermarket is zero rated, whereas food from a restaurant is not.

New build houses are zero rated, as are books I believe - we need more housing and books are often used to increase knowledge.

While a state education system exists ( one which the vast majority of people have no choice but to use) and while the government have a legal requirement to educate your child, it can't possibly be the case that private education is essential - nor could it be something the government wish to encourage.

It's not as if taxing education is without precedent. I recently completed an OU degree. A few years ago I would have received tax relief on my fees - not any more, in fact I had to pay 20% income tax on the money I spent on fees (about £4K in total), which may be chicken feed to a KWC family, but for me was a lot of money and delayed my graduation by two years.

[Max Power]

28 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

It's not being communist though is it. My understanding is that VAT is pretty much charged on anything which either isn't essential, or isn't something the government particularly want to encourage.

So food from the supermarket is zero rated, whereas food from a restaurant is not.

New build houses are zero rated, as are books I believe - we need more housing and books are often used to increase knowledge.

While a state education system exists ( one which the vast majority of people have no choice but to use) and while the government have a legal requirement to educate your child, it can't possibly be the case that private education is essential - nor could it be something the government wish to encourage.

It's not as if taxing education is without precedent. I recently completed an OU degree. A few years ago I would have received tax relief on my fees - not any more, in fact I had to pay 20% income tax on the money I spent on fees (about £4K in total), which may be chicken feed to a KWC family, but for me was a lot of money and delayed my graduation by two years.

Because the government provides free education and people are willing to free up capacity by paying for their children’s education, then how is it justified to then not reimburse them with the cost of the education they don’t receive? I’m not suggesting that they should be reimbursed, but to then tax something they are relieving the government of seems like a class driven decision rather than any sensible policy? 
The really wealthy will not be affected, but the borderline parents will be.

I agree with your plight also, poor policies all round.

[A fool and his money.....]

47 minutes ago, Max Power said:

Because the government provides free education and people are willing to free up capacity by paying for their children’s education, then how is it justified to then not reimburse them with the cost of the education they don’t receive? I’m not suggesting that they should be reimbursed, but to then tax something they are relieving the government of seems like a class driven decision rather than any sensible policy? 
The really wealthy will not be affected, but the borderline parents will be.

I agree with your plight also, poor policies all round.

I disagree about it being a class driven decision. Parents who home school presumably don't get reimbursed the money they save the taxpayer by not sending their kids to school. You don't get a rebate for not going to the doctor. 

People of any class are welcome to send their kids to state school.  In fact a vast majority of people have no choice but to do so. I really don't see why we should be subsidising the few who can afford to send their kids elsewhere.