Earlier this week, Full Fact reported on a disagreement between the Sutton Trust and the Independent Schools Council (ISC) about the amount of money spent by private schools on bursaries for poorer students.

 

The ISC criticised the perceived use of “out-of-date, incomplete and mismatched data” in the Sutton Trust’s report, which it claimed undermined the conclusions it drew. Full Fact found that whilst concerns about the age of the information were well-founded, the ISC’s critique of the perceived mismatch in the data was hard to verify, as it rested on research that was not publically available.

 

At the time of going to press on Monday, Full Fact had yet to receive a response from the ISC to the points raised. Since then, we have been in dialogue with the ISC, who have explained their position in relation to a number of points raised in our initial article.

 

A spokesperson told us: “Our financial data is drawn from our annual census [of independent schools], which all ISC schools are obliged to complete every year. This means that we aren't using a self-selecting sample but we are using a larger sample than [report author] Professor Davies.”

 

According to the ISC’s analysis of their census data, the conclusions drawn in the Sutton Trust report are inaccurate.

 

An ISC statement sent to Full Fact noted that: “Schools with higher incomes do not appear to spend a lower proportion on bursaries. When ISC schools are ranked by the proportion of their fee income that they spend on bursaries, the top 25 per cent have an average annual fee income of £7.6m; the bottom 25 per cent have an average fee income of £7.5m.”

 

However a direct comparison between the data used by the ISC and the Sutton Trust remains difficult, due to the fact that the Council is unable to publish the fieldwork for its census.

 

As the ISC’s spokesperson noted: “We don't publish the source data since it comprises sensitive financial data which schools have given us in confidence, on the understanding that we will not pass it on.”

 

This means that the only data publically available for any independent analysis remains the accounts lodged at the Charities Commission, the source used by Peter Davies in his report for the Sutton Trust.

 

There is therefore an impasse at the heart of this debate which makes claim and counter-claim difficult to entirely verify or reject. Full Fact has no reason to doubt either the ISC’s claims to hold more comprehensive and up-to-date information than that obtained by Prof Davies, or the conclusions that they are able to draw from it.

 

Equally however, it is fair to say that Prof Davies used the best data publically available, and it is unfair to critique his analysis on the basis of data to which he hasn’t had access.