TMF wrote: ↑Mon Aug 06, 2018 7:36 pm
Well - there were some questions about a refund of fees - here is what I would suggest. Return to pupils or their parents the average fees paid for their time at the school (this takes care of the variable nature of fees). The school can then say they have done something concrete. This would not cost the school too much - they would be paying the original amounts not inflation adjusted amounts. Pupils who have no concerns or more concerns can simply not accept the payment. The school might have to sell the ancient silver. The various people who have had their lives turned upside down by the weak people the school allowed to prey on children would have some small token compensation. The number of cases currently known is probably only 5% of what actually happened. The school can either block its way to oblivion - or get ahead of the situation.
Hence, in my view, it should issue a no fault payment to pupils (as above), analyze the extent of the problem properly (e.g. drawing up a list of the career trajectory and residence time of all teachers).
Several people have thanked TMF for this post. So maybe responding to it in the way I am about to is asking for trouble? But anyway, here goes.
It seems to me the biggest financial responsibility the school has as a result of this continuing disaster is towards the victims who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of CH staff. Leaving aside the question of civil claims for damages, CH surely has a moral responsibility to provide funds to enable these victims to have access to the very best professional help for as long as they need it.
Providing an automatic refund of fees to everyone who attended the school during a period of say 30 years doesn't help meet that responsibility at all. It's just a very expensive and administratively impractical way of achieving nothing of importance:
1. The amount a victim would receive from having fees refunded would be wholly inadequate to provide the professional and practical help they need and deserve.
2. Because refunds would go to such a large group the cost could be huge. Let's say we're looking at a 30 year period and that any one time there would have been 800 pupils at Horsham. That means 24,000 pupil years. I've no idea what the average annual fees were over that period, but let's take a conservative estimate of £500. That gives a cost to this exercise of £12M. OK some will have died and some will refuse a refund but the potential cost is still huge.
3. And let's assume that on average pupils stayed in the school for 6 years. That means we need to look at 35 years worth of pupils (to account for those who started before the 30 year period started and remained there for a further one to five years). So the number of Old Blues who need to be traced is approximately 800/6 x 35, which give or take is around 4,500. This is completely impractical and the cost of doing it is out of all proportion to the supposed benefits.
4. I see it's proposed to keep the cost down by ignoring inflation. How is that fair? If it's thought that everyone who had the misfortune to be educated at CH between 1970 and 2000 deserves to be compensated, why should their compensation be different depending on whether they started in 1975 or 1995?
5. Finally, almost certainly it isn't legally possible for fees to be refunded. CH is a charity and can only use it's assets for charitable purposes. I really don't see how spending millions to refund fees to everyone who attended the school over a 30 year period can possibly be considered to be legitimate charitable expenditure. However, setting aside funds to provide real help to real victims would definitely be legitimate.
The real problem I have with this proposal is that it draws attention away from the real victims: those who were abused by staff and then let down by the school authorities, and have been living with the damage ever since. If others didn't enjoy their time at CH and found it wasn't a nice place, that's a shame, and I agree, it shouldn't have been like that. For a year or so I was bullied too, and it should not have been allowed to happen. But let's face it, the world is full of people who didn't enjoy their school days. I think we need to get a sense of proportion; it's kind of like there's been a train crash in which 20 people have received life changing injuries while others are complaining that because the train was overcrowded they couldn't get a seat and should therefore get the cost of their season tickets refunded.