Email: Schools and boaters

I must object to Terry Ollerton's email about key workers without a mooring sending their children to school.

Schools are required by the government to make provision for all children and that includes the children of travellers, including children who live on boats. Parents are certainly not required to contribute financially to the running of the school either by payment of council tax or any other monetary contribution before their children can attend school. This is an attitude I thought was left behind with the Victorians but perhaps Terry wants to return to a world where children were sent up chimneys?

Parents have to send their children to school, it's the law—and all children have the right to education according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It doesn't matter how much tax or what taxes their parents pay. If their parents are key workers they'll be paying income tax and everyone pays VAT no matter what sort of home they live in.

You don't have to pay council tax to use local authority services. A lot of people don't pay council tax; if you are on a low income it is rebated and if you live in a homeless hostel you don't pay it. Some people who don't pay council tax such as the severely mentally impaired, which includes people with Alzheimers, make the biggest use of local services. So why is Terry Ollerton singling out key workers without a mooring, who don't use as many services? If you live on a boat you don't need services like water, sewage and refuse collection from the council as they are provided by CaRT and paid for through your licence fee.

Only 22% of council funding comes from council tax. 61% comes from government and 17% from business rates. Council tax can only be charged on domestic property. Boats are chattels ie. personal possessions in law, not domestic property, so a boat without a mooring can't be charged council tax even if it's a home.

John Morgan