Independent Schools Council is under fire from its own members as it goes to court over charity status
The country's independent schools are, like Imogen Thomas and an unnamed footballer, having their day in court.
Expensive lawyers from Farrer & Co, legal advisers to the Crown, are engaged in the High Court in arguing the case that private schools should not have to tolerate the Charity Commission telling them how many bursaries for poor children they have to provide in order for them to keep their charitable status.
The case is being brought by the Independent Schools Council (ISC), the body that represents the 1,260 fee-paying schools that are charities. David Lyscom, the former diplomat who heads the ISC, has been sitting at the back of the court, doubtless pondering the irony that the moment of fame comes as his organisation is facing a mutiny by some of its elite members – the greatest internal turmoil since it was set up more than 30 years ago.
The threat to the ISC's role as the voice of independent schools to politicians and the wider public has come from the elite group of public schools that includes Westminster School and Eton College, The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC).
The coup by HMC, which has voted to pull out of ISC at the end of August – has sent shock waves across the world of private education.
Not only will the ISC lose £600,000 of its £1.4m income, it will lose its credibility as an organisation that represents private education as a whole. At the moment, it is a coalition that includes most independent schools, from the small proprietor-owned schools in the Independent Schools Association to the likes of Eton College, with fees of £30,000 a year.
The vote by HMC is in reality an ultimatum that unless ISC makes radical changes and slims down its organisation, it will lose its most high-profile schools. The headmasters are reluctant to talk on the record about their reasons.
The ISC's critics complain that the organisation is frittering their money away – that over the last few years, the number of staff has increased but the core functions are not being efficiently performed. Others hint that they do not want an ISC that dictates policy and politics to its member organisations.
One headmaster, who did not want to be named, says: "It does things we don't want, like organising conferences, but it doesn't give us a good service in promoting independent education. It has become unwieldy and we want to see a restructuring."
The row seems to have begun over a minor rule change on membership agreed by the Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools, one of the eight organisations that fund the ISC. It was seen by some headmasters as a backdoor route to recognition by the ISC of academies or free schools, which are, of course, state schools.
The discontent that ISC was about to take in the government's favourite state schools became swept up into wider complaints about its cost and effectiveness.
Lyscom is maintaining a dignified silence, but he has already moved to deal with HMC's complaints. The ISC board has been expanded to include Geof Lucas, HMC's general secretary, and the general secretaries of the other school organisations.
Within the broader group of fee-paying schools – the girls' schools and boarding schools – there is greater support for ISC, partly because they are more dependent on its services.
Dr Helen Wright, president of the Girls' Schools Association (GSA) and head of St Mary's boarding school in Calne, Wiltshire, says: "We don't share HMC's views, but we do need the right people in the right place and we agree with HMC that there should be more direct accountability to the associations. I just hope there will be another ballot [of HMC] and they will think carefully before opting out."
The ISC has supporters among the top public schools. Barnaby Lenon, headmaster of Harrow School, says: "They have been extremely helpful on a number of issues. They worked with us when the Office of Fair Trading was investigating public schools accused of fee-fixing. They produced excellent research on the exam success of independent schools."
Others, such as Martin Stephen, who retires in August as High Master of St Paul's School in Barnes, London, believes there will always be tensions because the organisations that fund ISC often have few common interests and are in competition with one another. He says: "The organisations haven't evolved. We have HMC, which remains essentially a group of boys' schools that now take girls; we have GSA, which includes schools that are not as academically selective.
"The ISC has become a bit of a whipping boy for the failure of the different organisations to agree on what they want from an over-arching body."
The spat with HMC may be resolved over the summer. ISC's future may be more closely linked to the result of the case now being heard in the High Court. If the independent schools can stop what they see as the Charity Commission forcing them to provide free places, a grateful sector will continue to pay their contributions. If they lose, there will schools asking why such an expensive challenge was ever mounted.
The present government, which has a Cabinet stuffed with ex-public schoolboys, was never likely to be unsympathetic to the fee-paying schools. The political tide was already moving in their favour … but High Court judges are a law unto themselves.