Sir – I refer to Mr O’Dwyer’s letter (March 21). His timely letter placed some of the comments of previous correspondence and articles in The Oxford Times into a factual, corrective context. He posed the question to The Oxford Times “why does your paper wish to get involved in an initiative like this when 93 per cent of UK schoolchildren attend state schools and seven per cent attend private fee- paying schools?”
It is necessary to recognise that both The Oxford Times and St Edward’s School are commercial organisations. They are in business to make a profit. It is a fact of business life that whatever your ‘product’ — whether it is motor cars or education — if you fail to make sufficient profit, eventually you have to close, enter a merger with, or be taken over by, another business.
Any business welcomes positive publicity, especially if linked with an anniversary. The Oxford Times/St Edward’s bursary offer was to combine the anniversaries of “two great Oxford institutions”.
A financial fact relevant to the general population regarding this institutional linkage is that access to The Oxford Times costs £1.30 a week, access to St Edward’s costs £25,000 a year. Every private school in the UK enjoys charity tax status. This brings them huge financial benefits by reducing their tax liability. (Independent Schools Council 2004 estimated a total benefit of the order of £99m each year for UK fee-paying schools.)
Not surprisingly, in the present economic climate, the issue of charitable tax status for fee-paying schools like St Edward’s continues to be controversial.
In 2012, a prominent UK citizen stated publicly: “Authentic charity status needs to be more than a few token bursaries to a private school or the occasional public access to a school swimming pool.” The citizen was David Cameron.
Howard Williams, Oxford