SOME independent schools may voluntarily give up charitable status to escape the threat of “hostile voices” and “sabre-rattling” by regulators at the Charity Commission.

Schools exploring the move believe it would have only a limited impact on their finances and would free them from rules that could prove intrusive and bureaucratic.

From next year the presumption that all education is charitable and so can enjoy tax breaks will end. Instead, schools will have to prove they provide a “public benefit”, for example, access for poor families.

Many head teachers have complained at what they see as threats from some Charity Commission executives.

“Someone, somewhere [in the Charity Commission] has got an antiindependent school agenda,” said Bernard Trafford, chairman of the Headmasters’ & Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents more than 250 independent schools.

Trafford, headmaster of Wolverhampton grammar school, said that while abandoning charitable status would “go against our heart”, the possibility was now being considered by his school and others.

“A lot of us will explore this option now these kind of crazy, hostile voices are being floated again,” he said.

Rosie Chapman, executive director of policy and effectiveness at the commission, has said it could freeze bank accounts and “go nuclear” against schools that fail to meet the public benefit test.

Steps being taken by schools to prove public benefit include increasing bursaries for pupils from poorer families and opening sports facilities. Moves such as sponsoring city academies are also being explored. Lord Adonis, the schools minister, will use a speech next week to the Girls’ Schools Association of independent schools to promote academies.

Charitable status brings independent schools an estimated £100m in tax breaks a year.

But schools have been advised that if they turn themselves into companies, Vat could not under European law be imposed on school fees. They have estimated that the other tax benefits of charitable status could be replaced by a fee increase of 2.7%-5%.

Chris Woodhead, the Sunday Times columnist who chairs the education firm Cognita, said he was in discussions to acquire a number of schools worried about whether they could survive as independent charities under the law.

He said: “If the public benefit test means, as it seems it will, that [charity] schools have to devote more and more time and resources to propping up state schools, what does that mean for the education of their own children and how will their parents react?”

Andrew Hind, chief executive of the Charity Commission, said: “The public benefit requirement is not something any charity should fear. It is an opportunity for charities to articulate even more clearly the value they bring.”

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