Committee
Education, Children and Young People Committee 18 February 2026 [Draft]
18 Feb 2026 · S6 · Education, Children and Young People Committee
Item of business
VAT and Independent Schools
Lorraine Davidson
Watch on SPTV
In Scotland, we have more families who are in the category of just managing to pay the fees. There was a meeting with the parent body at Cedars when the school said, “VAT is coming in. You are not a wealthy cohort of people. You are just people whose children basically needed a little bit of extra support.”We have quite a lot of people who never intended to send their children into the independent sector, but may have struggled with ASN provision in the state sector and have come to the independent sector. I was at one of our schools in East Lothian and was quite touched by the fact that it had a really strong ASN department. Children who had gone there because they were struggling in the state sector came into that school in Haddington for a few years and really began to thrive. The headteacher spoke about the success stories of some pupils who are now thriving and have been able to go really successfully back into the state sector for secondary schooling, which means that there is a pressure that the local state secondary will not have to pick up. Those children have been able to access support somewhere else, in another part of the Scottish education system. It is not a case of them and us; it is about a child doing something different for a few years and, when that works, going back to access a great Scottish state school education.We have to get over some of the ideology, work together and respect the fact that some families did not intend to send their child to an independent school but want to make a different choice. We are working as a sector to ensure that that choice is available to as many people as possible so that they can come into our schools. If it is not possible for children to come into our schools, there is all the great work that John O’Neill is doing, through the partnership committee, to benefit the 100,000 kids in Scotland who are not in our schools but can benefit from them.We would really like to work with the committee on how we can do that. We accept that that work is not strategic at the moment because it happens school by school, but there is scope to make that work more strategically and to be more meaningful and for us to be a bigger part of the solution in Scotland.
In the same item of business
The Convener
Con
Welcome back. Our next item of business is an evidence session on VAT and independent schools. I welcome our witnesses from the Scottish Council of Independe...
Lorraine Davidson (Scottish Council of Independent Schools)
Thank you, convener, and members of the committee, for your kind invitation to give evidence today. We appreciate the opportunity to assist the committee’s c...
The Convener
Con
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Lorraine Davidson
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The Convener
Con
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Lorraine Davidson
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The Convener
Con
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Lorraine Davidson
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The Convener
Con
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Lorraine Davidson
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The Convener
Con
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Lorraine Davidson
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The Convener
Con
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Catherine Dyer (Scottish Council of Independent Schools)
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The Convener
Con
Before I go to other members, Mr O’Neill, will you tell us about the work that the education and partnership committee has done and is planning to do on that...
John O’Neill (Scottish Council of Independent Schools)
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John Mason (Glasgow Shettleston) (Ind)
Ind
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Lorraine Davidson
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John Mason
Ind
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John O’Neill
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John Mason
Ind
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Lorraine Davidson
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John Mason
Ind
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Lorraine Davidson
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John Mason
Ind
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Lorraine Davidson
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John Mason
Ind
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Lorraine Davidson
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Miles Briggs
Con
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Lorraine Davidson
SCIS is a charity, and we take our charity obligations seriously. When we commissioned the BiGGAR Economics report two years ago, it was the first time that ...