The Independent Schools Council, which represents the country’s fee-charging schools, instructed Farrer & Co, the Queen’s solicitors, to make an unprecedented legal challenge against the Charity Commission’s guidance in the High Court.
Private schools, many of which charge £27,000 a year, enjoy charitable status, said to be worth £120 million a year, as they are not taxed as the businesses their critics say they really are. This means the taxpayer is effectively subsidising the education of the very rich.
Under the Charities Act of 2006 fee-paying schools have to prove they provide a “public benefit” to hang on to their tax break. But Matthew Burgess, deputy chief executive of the ISC, said his schools were being forced “to embark on fee strategies which might prove not to be economically viable, with potentially catastrophic circumstances”.
