Agenda item

The Committee considered the joint report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services, Corporate Director of Regeneration, Economy and Growth and Corporate Director of Resources that provided Members with the outcomes of the public consultation in relation to Durham County Council’s Home to School Transport Service (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Strategic Manager was in attendance to present the report and deliver a presentation that provided the background to the consultation, process and areas of consultation. The presentation also provided a summary of feedback received and details of the proposed recommendations (for copy of presentation, see file of minutes).

Councillor Walton commented that 324 responses out of 9000 users which equated to 3.6% was a very low data source and those who had responded were more likely to experience a greater impact. She asked what could be done to encourage more people to respond.

The Strategic Manager responded that in terms of the home to school transport consultation a broad range of channels were used to promote the consultation including attending face to face meeting with key groups. He commented that he would take back the comments about consultation response rates to the Councils Consultation team.

Councillor Crute referred to the flexibility of the proposed scheme and that £2.00 flat rate for concessionary fares. If that offer was then withdrawn those concessionary fares would then be aligned to commercial fares and this would impact on families. He then referred to unsafe walking routes to school and his argument was always that the routes should be made safe and asked about the impact on the Council to make these routes up to a safe standard. He stated that if the routes were not made safe more children would be on the concessionary seat scheme. He asked about the feasibility of making routes safe and a commitment to make the routes safe.

The Strategic Manager responded that any child on a route assessed as unsafe would be provided with free transport to school. He indicated that they would not be addressing every unsafe route due to the cost viability but there were 5-6 routes that had been identified and would be reviewed to ascertain the cost of improvement such as installing a streetlight or crossing. They would analyse each route to understand where there was an appropriate business case to carry out the work. If there was not a business case it was unlikely that the council would spend a large amount of capital to generate improvement, for example where there was only a small number of journeys on the route.

In response to a question from Councillor Crute on concessionary fares and the alignment with commercial fares the Strategic Manager clarified that the Council’s decision was to align it to the business service improvement plan rate for the current year, after which it would be revisited in light of any changes to this.

Councillor Crute referred to the bus service improvement plan offer and routes between villages where commercial transport was not provided and asked if the proposals were changed would they come back to this Scrutiny Committee.

The Head of Education and Skills indicated that concessionary fares would be reviewed on a year-by-year basis. He stated that some people were not happy about the concessionary scheme as it was thought to be based upon historic reasons including school amalgamations. He gave an example of Durham Johnson school that was on two sites and they ran a concessionary scheme for those children who needed to be moved over to the new site. There was also an inequality in what people paid, as St. Leonards pupils could pay £3.50 per day for transport, whereas some other schools provide their own service which made it free to parents. He then referred to safe walking routes to school and explained the focus was on current safe routes that needed some work on them. He gave an example of where a current route was deemed as being unsafe and the alternative cost of transport would be over £780,000 per year. This would need to be evaluated alongside the capital costs of something like a pedestrian crossing to make it safe which maybe expensive in the short term but have longer term savings.

Councillor Scurfield asked if there was any monitoring on the impact of children getting to school with some of these proposals in particular children with SEND.

The Strategic Manager responded that there were a range of factors around child attendance at schools that are monitored, transport could contribute to this but the proposals would not impact on entitled children getting transport to school. He stated that anyone who was eligible for transport would continue to be provided with it and the programme of work was more about the options for how transport is provided and also doing it more efficiently.

Resolved: That the contents of the report and presentation be noted.