Children who were eligible were provided with free or subsidised places to fee-charging independent schools - based on the child's results in the school's entrance examination (the fees contributions charged were based on an annual means test).
[3] Arguing the practice to be elitist and wasteful of public funds, the Labour government of Tony Blair, upon its election in 1997, abolished the Assisted Places Scheme.
[5] Some argue that the result of abolition has been to reduce the social range of pupils educated at independent schools.
[citation needed] Others point out that "fewer than 10 per cent of the selected children had fathers who were manual workers, compared with 50 per cent in service-class occupations such as teaching, and that although children from single-parent families made up the largest category, other disadvantaged groups, notably the unemployed, and black and Asian families, had poor representation.
"[6] Some independent schools, many of which have charitable status, do allocate significant funding to assist in the placement of pupils from poorer backgrounds through provision of bursaries.