Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH 2004
MR PETER
HOUSDEN, MS
PENNY JONES
AND MR
PETER OPENSHAW
Q20 Mr Gibb: What is the Government's
view non-statutorily about what is reasonable for a child under
eight or over eight to walk?
Mr Housden: I am not aware that
the Government has taken a view about that.
Ms Jones: I know that colleagues
in the Department for Transport are working on a strategy at the
moment, but there are no numbers quoted as to what might be reasonable
for anybody of a particular age to walk. It depends on the individual
and it particularly depends on the safety of the route and any
obstacles or barriers—are there any railways to cross and
so on.
Mr Gibb: Assume those things are
not in the way, in terms of what one can expect a child to walk,
assuming there is no danger and a straightforward route; does
the Government, with all its experts and apparent obesity strategy,
have a view? Is it 10 yards, 100 yards, half a mile, a mile? It
is astonishing that, with all your access to resources of expertise,
you do not have a view that can assist in an advisory way to local
authorities in regard to their plans.
Q21 Chairman: You look puzzled.
Mr Housden: It is so conditioned
by the age and the nature of the young person concerned, and the
circumstances of the journey, that it illustrates the Government's
desire to move away from the rigidities that would be implied
by replacing the statutory limits with another set.
Q22 Mr Gibb: I am not saying a strategy;
I just wanted to get a view of what the experts think is reasonable
for a child to walk. I have no idea.
Mr Housden: No.
Q23 Chairman: Have you commissioned
any research from the psychologists or whoever, from people who
have an interesting mix of intellectual academic qualifications
to work that out? Has any research been commissioned by the Department?
Mr Housden: Penny or Peter might
speak about research, but in terms of what we know about parents
and the judgments they make about what is reasonable, those have
certainly been shrinking. Typically, with a journey of more than
a mile to a primary school these days, overwhelmingly parents
are looking to cars or other means to do that.
Ms Jones: I am not aware of any
research as to what pupils can walk. We only know what is there
on the ground. We do know the distances that children travel to
school from the National Travel Survey.
Q24 Mr Gibb: You have not commissioned
anything by the Department of Health as to what would be acceptable
or a recommended distance for a child to walk—
Ms Jones: No, and it depends how
far away from school they live as well.
Q25 Mr Gibb: I am surprised, given
all this fuss about obesity and the desire to get children to
walk or cycle, that you have commissioned no research to try and
make policy, professionally created, instead of just assertion,
that you have not commissioned research about what is regarded
as reasonable for a child to walk.
Mr Housden: As you say, the case
is very well made in general about the importance of exercise,
including walking, in combating obesity and promoting good health.
We have not commissioned research into the specifics of how
a walking journey to school contributes to that, so there we have
it. But we believe the general proposition that measures that
encourage young people to walk safely to school will contribute
towards their healthy way of living.
Q26 Mr Gibb: You have no evidence
on which to base that assertion.
Mr Housden: Other than the general
evidence that is available that connects exercise with well-being.
Q27 Chairman: One of the fundamental
differences is that between 1944 and now, is the amount of metal
flying around roads so that cycling and walking are very different
propositions now than they were in 1944.
Mr Housden: Yes.
Q28 Helen Jones: I want to follow
up my colleague's question in a very complex area, as you have
said. In the original action plan there was reference to other
Government initiatives such as tackling childhood obesity and
reducing congestion. I would like to explore a little what the
exact purpose of this is because we talked earlier about staggering
school opening hours, but how do we do that without also linking
in to other areas of Government policy such as that which encourages
single parents to go out to work? If school opening hours are
staggered, that leads to childcare problems if you have more than
one child. Has any consideration been given to that? It reduces
congestion, but gives a knock-on problem elsewhere.
Mr Housden: Absolutely, and that
is an example of the way in which you have to strike balances
on this. You can make a case for saying that staggered opening
hours will contribute to certain outcomes, but then you can equally
well say they make life more difficult for people with childcare
responsibilities. My earlier example was saying they also can
be an obstacle to schools collaborating effectively to broaden
the offer for pupils. Again, I do not think there was one right
royal road on that; it will be about that balance being struck
locally, according to particular circumstances.
Q29 Helen Jones: Will your guidance
to school governors, for example, include a proper dialogue with
parents and perhaps with neighbouring schools, bearing in mind
that a lot of parents have children at more than one school?
Mr Housden: Absolutely.
Q30 Helen Jones: The tackling of
obesity was referred to in the original action plan, but I think
we have lost sight of that. The Bill gives capital grants to schools
and allows local authorities to charge for school transport. Do
you agree that in many cases, if we want children to walk to school,
there is a lot of capital that needs to be spent on things like
making pavements safer and wider; and in an area such as the one
I represent actually putting pavements in at all? An individual
school cannot do that; it is a local authority matter. How are
we going to encourage local authorities to take that seriously
when there does not appear to be any pump-priming money available
for them to carry out that sort of work?
Mr Housden: Local authorities
with highways and transport authorities get very substantial funding
from the Government, which they supplement from Council Tax income.
They are able to, importantly, shape their own priorities around
that. The council that I used to work for had a budget for precisely
that type of activity, which it used. It was not as large as the
council would have liked but it used it for particular concerns
of road safety. You see in examples of councils working well on
all of this that they connect the school travel planning outcomes
with the budget-making decisions over a period to tackle particular
issues. We have seen examples where the school has made provision
for cycling sheds and changing facilities, and the local authority
has made provision for lit walkways and other means to make cycling
to school safe. This is not the land of milk and honey where all
problems will be solved because cash will be flowing in all directions,
but, nevertheless, the capacity within existing resources to bring
together local authorities' funding and that of the schools exists.
Q31 Helen Jones: I accept what you
say, but would you also accept that some local authorities have
far greater problems in these areas than others? There will be
authorities that cover large rural areas, for instance, and authorities
like mine with large town areas that were built without pavements
along the main road. Have you looked at the particular problems
that some areas face, which cannot be tackled within the current
budget except over a very long period of time? If we want schools
to put into place walking buses and encourage children to cycle
to school, surely that has to be joined up with a look at how
we are directing money to local authorities for other areas of
transport planning?
Mr Housden: Peter may want to
comment on this from the Department for Transport's point of view,
but the key thing for us in all of that is alignment of the overall
objectives of Government policy; hence the importance here that
we put on reducing congestion as being the clear main objective
here, of reducing reliance on the school run. If that consistency
of policy is apparent in our work on school transport planning
and underpins the Department for Transport's overall impetus,
it increases the likelihood of funding being used for the type
of integration you describe.
Mr Openshaw: Providing better
footways, pavements and so forth is obviously all part of the
responsibility of highway authorities, and it does come from the
general allocation of funding. I am not sure that I have anything
specific to add.
Q32 Chairman: In these schemes, as
Helen Jones said, is there a capacity in the pilot areas for there
to be an overall assessment of appropriate footpaths, cycle routes,
all of which I presume would be part of constituting a good bid
for being one of the pilot areas?
Mr Openshaw: I am sure that would
be part of the overall bids.
Q33 Chairman: It could go right across
the piece, but there is no extra money for it.
Mr Openshaw: If the local authority
wanted to put in a capital bid for funding through the local transport
plan system that was related to a pilot scheme, this would obviously
be something that my department would be looking at.
Q34 Helen Jones: But is there a system
between the departments to co-ordinate looking at the two bids
in that case?
Mr Openshaw: I think we will be
co-operating very closely in the assessment of these pilot bids.
Q35 Chairman: When is the due date
for them to be in, and when will they be approved? When does this
process start?
Ms Jones: It all depends on when
the legislation clears the House, and we cannot predict that at
the moment.
Q36 Chairman: What are you aiming
for? It is not exactly the Higher Education Bill, is it? You have
fair confidence that this will go through reasonably smoothly.
Ms Jones: Just to show we are
joined up, we hope very much that we will have the bids with us
by summer 2005; and of course the Local Transport Plan bids go
in in July. We have a link there. We hope to approve the bids
in the autumn of 2005, because parents applying for a school place
for September 2006, when their child changes school or is admitted
to school, will want to know by October 2005 when they make that
application what the transport arrangements are going to be. That
is why we have the timetable around the summer of 2005, but there
is also the link to the Local Transport Plan.
Mr Housden: Could I clarify Helen
Jones's important point here, because although Penny has been
describing the arrangements that will apply to the pilots, it
is open—and we would encourage every council that is developing
a school travel plan—which is all 150 local authorities—to
make the type of integration you describe; so there is no dependency
on being in a pilot or not. Everybody could do that. We hope that
the impetus of involving parents and local communities in thinking
hard about what is right for their school or group of schools
will have its effect on the local authority and lift the priority
of this in terms of local spending decisions.
Q37 Helen Jones: Do you accept that
could also raise expectations which local authorities will not
be able to fulfil without the money being available to them? If
you have every group of schools in a local authority discussing
a transport plan, asking for better cycle routes, better payments
and financial support amongst other things, and there is not enough
capital funding to meet those expectations, you are in danger
of raising hopes that cannot then be fulfilled.
Mr Housden: Inevitably. Rising
expectations typically are good in public policy terms because
they do encourage those responsible for decision-making to think
very, very hard about how they can meet those aspirations. Our
experience is that many of the requirements of school travel plans
do not necessarily require a lot of expenditure or indeed any,
and are just about better planning and co-ordination. So one hopes
that people would be able to make progress on those fronts if
they can, and hope that the pressure and impetus and momentum
behind all of this will encourage local decision-makers to prioritise
these sorts of issues, and with a proper alignment of transport
objectives and education objectives, that stands a good chance.
Q38 Mr Gibb: Is there a possibility
that people will use the discretionary power in the Bill and take
action where the local authority has not used that discretionary
power to provide transport arrangements? What is the legal advice?
Mr Housden: In terms of individual
citizens?
Q39 Mr Gibb: Yes, people who say,
"okay, my child is within three miles, but you have a discretion
to provide transport and you have not, and therefore under this
Act I will take action against you". Will the discretion
not lead to more litigation rather than less?
Mr Housden: Clearly, we hope not.
Typically, the existing legislation has not led to a lot of litigation
per se, but we are aware of quite a lot of dissatisfaction
that people at the boundaries have had. Your point is important.
In the guidance we do say that it will be very important for councils
putting forward to be part of the pilots that they have considered
all of those types of issue, particularly those around human rights,
to make sure they have a fair and equitable scheme in legal terms.
Our general legal advice is that the framework we are putting
forward is not likely to fall foul of those requirements; but
we have—to underpin your concern—specifically said
to local authorities that as they develop the specific scheme,
they must make sure that it is fully compliant in that sense.
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