FIVE top private schools in Scotland that were controversially approved as charities provide free education to fewer than 2% of their pupils.
Calls have now been made for a review of the legislation surrounding charitable status.
Independent schools, which educate around 4% of pupils in Scotland, receive lucrative tax breaks due to being classed as charities.
Since 2007, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has investigated whether 52 private schools do enough to merit this status. OSCR last week completed its inquiry and announced that 50 of the 52 schools had passed.
Investigations into the two other schools were suspended due to "other issues" with the charities.
Of the institutions given a clean bill of health, five had initially failed the test after an inquiry in 2012: Edinburgh's Fettes, pictured left; St Columba's School in Renfrewshire; St George's School for Girls, Edinburgh; Wellington in Ayr; and Loretto, Musselburgh.
After widening access to means-tested bursaries and increasing the value of the awards, OSCR ruled the schools had done enough to qualify for charitable status. However, the Sunday Herald can reveal the five have made only modest progress in widening access to means-tested bursaries covering 100% of the fee.
In the year Fettes - which charges up to £30,000 a year - failed the charity test, five pupils, accounting for 0.7% of the school roll, received a full award. OSCR then gave a pass to former prime minister Tony Blair's school after judging it had widened access. However, the pass report showed Fettes only provided six awards worth the full fee, which is the equivalent of 0.8% of all pupils.
St Columba's School in Kilmacolm, which charges more than £10,000 a year, failed the test after providing free education to just eight pupils. After it later passed, the school's inquiry report showed that it gave 100% bursaries to only 11 pupils in 2014-15. St George's School, which charges up to £12,000 a year, failed the test after doling out full awards to four pupils - 0.5% of the school roll. When it passed, only 16 pupils, or 2.1%, of its roll now benefit from 100% fee remission.
In 2012-13, Wellington School in Ayr gave one pupil a full award. In the following year when it passed, four individuals received 100% fee support - 0.8% of the pupil roll. Loretto, which educated MP Alistair Darling and which charges up to £30,000 a year, gave one pupil a full award in 2012-13 - 0.2% of the school roll. After its pass, in the current year only seven pupils got full fee remission, 1.2% of the roll.
Jim Murphy MP, who was crowned Scottish Labour leader yesterday, said recently private schools were doing the "minimum necessary".
Labour's Lord Foulkes - who attended independent fee-paying Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hertfordshire - said: "The whole thing is a farce, as the bar for achieving charitable status was too low to begin with. OSCR is a bit toothless on this issue and I feel it has undertaken a token exercise."
Martin Tyson, OSCR's head of registration, said: "Full bursaries are only one part of the equation, we look at the range of assistance they provide. We also consider those aspects of benefit that the school doesn't charge for. These can include how widely the school interacts with the wider community."
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