Hertfordshire: State school place enquiries from private school parents amid Government plans to add VAT on fees

With Government plans for VAT on private school fees, “hundreds” of parents whose children are educated in the independent sector have enquired about places at state schools in Hertfordshire, it has emerged.

But at a meeting of the county council’s education, libraries and lifelong learning cabinet panel, councillors heard that this had not yet translated into applications for school places.

Currently, private schools like Bishop’s Stortford College are exempt from having to charge VAT on their tuition or boarding fees. But that is expected to change from as early as January 1, with Government plans for the 20% VAT rate to be added.

The plans have led to predictions that a proportion of parents with children currently in the independent sector would seek places at state schools like The Bishop’s Stortford High School, Herts and Essex High School and Hockerill Anglo-European College.

But on Wednesday (September 11), councillors were told that so far only a “handful” of pupils had joined county schools from the private sector.

In answer to a question by Cllr Laurence Brass (Lib Dem, Bushey North), the county council’s deputy head of admissions, Jayne Abery, said that prior to the summer break they had had “literally hundreds of enquiries”, but “very few” of those materialised into applications or allocations – “literally a handful”.

She said: “We are noticing a slight increase in applications from the independent sector. But it’s certainly by no means a storm at the moment.” Nevertheless, they are monitoring the situation “very very carefully”.

In posing the question, Cllr Brass said: “Some of the media would have us believe that there has been a huge onrush from one sector to another.”

After hearing the officer’s response, he suggested this had been “scare-mongering”.

“Some of the media would have us believe there has been an avalanche of applications and it is clearly not true,” he said.

However, Conservative Cllr Caroline Clapper, the county council’s executive member for education, libraries and lifelong learning, said that the application process for secondary school places for September 2025 had only just opened.

“I think this is probably something that we will come back to,” she said. “Because the VAT increase is supposed to come in in January, which means that our secondary school admission rounds, for example, have just opened.

“So once we start to get an understanding of the figures and the amount of applications, we will probably get a clearer picture of exactly where we are.

“And I know a lot of the officers are doing a lot of work on this to monitor and mitigate what could potentially happen.”

Final details on the planned changes to tax breaks for private schools – as well as the Government’s assessment of the expected impacts – are expected to be confirmed in the Budget at the end of October.

In Bishop’s Stortford and Sawbridgeworth, the seven secondary schools have a series of open events lined up: Hockerill Anglo-European College – Sat Sept 14, 8.30am-12pm; Herts and Essex High School – Thu Sept 19, 5.30pm-8.30pm; St Mary’s Catholic School – Wed Sept 25, 6pm-8.30pm; Leventhorpe School – Thu Sept 26, 6pm-9pm; Avanti Grange – Wed Oct 2, presentations by principal at 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 7pm; Birchwood High School – Thu Oct 3, 4pm-7.30pm; The Bishop’s Stortford High School – Thu Oct 10, 5.30pm-8.45pm.

Bishop’s Stortford College has an open event on Saturday September 21 from 9am-1pm.