Almost half of the fee remission offered to pupils by private schools is not means tested and therefore may not go to genuinely-disadvantaged children, new research has found.

The Private Education Policy Forum (PEPF), a think tank devoted to reducing educational inequality between state and private schools in the UK, analysed annual accounts submitted by 215 Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) member schools in England.

Means-tested support is one way that private schools with charitable status aim to demonstrate their public benefit, as they are required to do under the rules that govern charities.

Researchers found that 54.9% of overall fee remission was spent by schools on means-tested support in 2022-23. This is up slightly from 54.2% in 2021-22, but still reflects that around £1 in every £2 spent on fee remission does not go to means-tested support.

The other half instead goes towards non-means tested scholarships or discounts such as those for children of staff, military personnel, or the clergy. #

In 2022-23, approximately £185m was spent by schools on fee discounts, which were not targeted at families on lower incomes, the report found.

And PEPF’s research found considerable variation in spending across schools on means tested-support – even between schools of similar gross fee incomes.

Schools with a gross fee income of around £30m in 2023 varied between a £0.5m spend and an almost £5m spend on means-tested support.

Reporting standards within annual accounts also varied widely in quality, consistency, and completeness.

Despite a widely-publicised increase in nominal expenditure, the report found real-terms spending on means-tested support decreased from £201m in 2020-21, to £191m in 2021-22.

It then rose slightly to £194m in 2022-23, but still below the 2020-2021 means-tested bursary spend, showing spending on bursaries did not rise between 2020-21 and 2022-23 when inflation is accounted for.

The report also found that the number of pupils receiving means-test support has declined in recent years – from 15,105 in 2020-21 (11.4% of pupils in each school, on average) to 14,413 in 2021-22 (10.6%) and 14,028 in 2022-23 (10.2%).

Tom Fryer, PEPF researcher, report author, and lecturer at the University of Manchester’s Institute of Education, said: “Unless private school fee remission is means-tested, it can’t truly be said to serve under-resourced students as the sector often claims to do.

“From our research, it is encouraging to see a modest increase in the proportion of means-tested support which private schools have offered in recent years, but the fact that this only represents around half of the discounts they provide should offer pause for thought before their remission numbers are lauded.

“Similarly, the diversity of practice between schools – with some spending a considerable proportion of their income on means-tested support, and others very little – suggests that schools place different weight on their public benefit contribution.

“The wide variability in the standard of reporting of this support between schools is also a concern.

“Private schools need to at the very least improve their reporting of fee remission if they are to justify the charitable status which they still retain.“