Industry News
Charitable status 'will impact on fees'
Posted on 19th November 2007
Fees will increase if independent schools lose their charitable status, an expert has commented.
High master of St Paul's School in London Dr Martin Stephen told the Sunday Telegraph that plans to make private schools justify their tax-free charitable status by proving they provide public benefit are exasperating.
"Schools would become more elitist and there would be a rise in profit-run schools. This should not be a time to attack independent schools but to emulate them," he urged.
Other headteachers told the newspaper they should be entitled to tax breaks as the pupils are not being educated at the government's expense.
Recently, Bernard Trafford, chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and headmaster of an independent school, said to the Times that someone within the Charity Commission has an "anti-independent" agenda.
He added that some private schools would choose to abandon their charitable status rather than agree to the commission's rules.
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