A parent was asked by Buckinghamshire Council to 'provide evidence' that she couldn't afford private school ahead of the government's new VAT on fees.

The Daily Telegraph has reportedly seen an email sent by Buckinghamshire Council to a parent informing her that an application to move her daughter from an independent school to one of two local secondaries had been unsuccessful because they were both full.

The council spokesperson is quoted as asking the parent to "provide evidence that they can no longer finance the independent school fees" - seemingly breaching the government's school admissions code, which says local authorities shouldn't request financial information from families.

The parent in question, who has not been named, told the newspaper that she applied for places at the two state schools after becoming afraid she would be priced out of her daughter's education by the Labour government's introduction of a 20 per cent value-added tax (VAT) on private school fees, effective from January 1, 2025.

Anita Cramner, the council's cabinet member for education and children's services, told the Telegraph that the "choice of wording" in the email did not represent the council's formal policies and said they would "not be seeking financial information from them or any other Buckinghamshire family".

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All children between five and 16-years-old are entitled to a free state school education and Labour has said the scheme to end tax breaks for private schools - announced at the end of July - would help fund 6,500 new teachers at non-fee-paying schools, which are attended by nine out of 10 children in the country.

During a meeting of Buckinghamshire Council's children's and education select committee on September 5, education director Michael Jarrett said that as of September 4, there had been 92 applications from parents to "transfer from their current independent school into mainstream school".

36 of the 92 were still awaiting placement, with 23 already allocated to a school of their preference.

Mr Jarrett said the local authority had been braced for a "deluge" of transfer applications but was "not as concerned" after seeing the actual numbers.

Adding: "It is a very small proportion of the overall cohort of children and young people in independent provision (but) we anticipate that there will be more contacts as we get closer to the January threshold."