In Solent Pathway Campus Limited v HMRC [2025] TC09536, the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) found that a joint venture between Solent University and a third-party course provider qualified for VAT exemption as an ‘eligible body’.
Solent Pathway Campus Limited (SPCL) was a joint venture partnership between Solent University and a third-party course provider, QAHE (Solent) Ltd.
- SPCL claimed that their supplies of pre-degree courses were exempt from VAT.
- The courses were intended to give overseas students the skills needed to undertake a UK undergraduate degree course.
- Completion of the course would give the student an NQF level 3 qualification and the entitlement to join an undergraduate course at Solent University.
- HMRC refused SPCL’s claim on the basis that SPCL was not an ‘eligible body’.
- SPCL Appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (FTT).
Schedule 9, Group 6, of VATA 1994 exempts, under Item 1, the provision by an eligible body of Education or vocational training.
Note 1 defines an eligible body as a UK university, and any college, institution, school or hall of such a university.
The FTT found that:
- The university and SPCL had a common understanding that SPCL was a ‘college’ of the university.
- The contractual framework of the joint venture ensured that SPCL students were also students of the university.
- SPCL students were generally treated as students of the university during their course of study.
- SPCL’s courses were approved by the university.
- The qualification was awarded by the university, and the course content was similar to that taught in the first year of a four-year degree course, meaning SPCL’s course was ‘university-level’.
- SPCL was a college of the university, due to the evident relationship between the students and the university and the degree to which the activities of SPCL were recognised by and integrated with the university.
- SPCL’s courses met the criteria for VAT exemption in Item 1 of Group 6.
The appeal was allowed.
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