Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH 2004
MR PETER
HOUSDEN, MS
PENNY JONES
AND MR
PETER OPENSHAW
Q40 Mr Chaytor: The pilot phase will
continue until 2011, after which there will be an independent
evaluation of the pilots, with a view to a national roll-out;
and realistically we are talking about 2014-15 before we get a
national roll-out building on the evidence of the pilots. Is that
a fair assessment?
Ms Jones: No, that is not the
case. The evaluation will take place in 2010, but we have said
that the pilots will have a guarantee that they can run on to
2011, because those local authorities that take part in the pilots
want a guarantee that they will not come to a juddering halt after
two or three years.
Q41 Mr Chaytor: It will be 2013 before
we see that.
Ms Jones: No. The way the legislation
is crafted is that if the Secretary of State decides on the basis
of the evaluation of the pilots that things are going well and
wants to expand the scheme to allow the LEAs to participate in
2011, the pilot clauses automatically lapse and will disappear,
so everyone who would like to run a scheme could come to us and
ask to run a scheme.
Q42 Mr Chaytor: As of 2012?
Ms Jones: Yes.
Mr Chaytor: Given your earlier comment
on why this Bill was based on the blockage in the current legislation
over the statutory walking distance, and give the Department has
no view of what the statutory walking distance should be now,
why not simply repeal the legislation related to statutory walking
distance and devolve that to local authorities, and devolve everything
else either to local authorities or to schools? Why does central
Government need to hang on to its definition of statutory walking
distance? It seems the most trivial area of the whole education
policy. Why can we not devolve that to LEAs or individual schools?
Q43 Chairman: Making every child
over five walk three miles a day compulsorily! That is only a
mischievous thought!
Ms Jones: I suppose that in central
Government we are fairly conservative people, and we want to make
sure that if we propose change it will work and not disadvantage
anybody. The main purpose of the existing legislation and indeed
the pilots we propose is to make sure that children can get to
school, and no child is unable to attend school. The reason we
have left the statutory walking distances in the legislation is
to make sure that no local education authority would leave a child's
family in a situation whereby it was physically impossible for
a child to get to school; so, if you like, it is a minimum guarantee.
We think that should stay there, and we have not had anybody suggest
to us that it is wrong to have that minimum guarantee staying
in the legislation.
Q44 Mr Chaytor: Surely, the essence
of the pilot concept is that that minimum guarantee may well be
overturned by LEA pilots?
Ms Jones: No, because the LEA
has an obligation to continue to provide transport for those pupils.
You can never have a situation where there is no bus for the child
to catch.
Q45 Mr Chaytor: When you get to the
evaluation of the pilots, they do not appear to establish any
criteria by which they are going to be judged successful, so how
can you evaluate it?
Ms Jones: We have been very clear
in everything we have said that the primary purpose of the pilots
is to reduce car use on the school run; and we must make sure
that for every pilot area there are the necessary facilities to
make sure that this is happening.
Q46 Mr Chaytor: You have not specified
targets for the reduction of car use.
Ms Jones: No.
Q47 Mr Chaytor: Again, if a particular
pilot scheme results in a 2.5% reduction in car use, will that
be judged a success?
Ms Jones: It is too early to say
because we do not have information from individual authorities
about what car use is at the moment. The National Travel Survey
figures are national. So we need to look at the position now,
and what it might reasonably be in a few years' time. I do not
think that until we have got the analysis done at local level
that it is right for us to make judgments. We must not forget
that in addition to reduction in car use, there are a number of
other objectives. You could get a scheme that, for example, was
going to cut car use on the school run but also had some very
powerful educational objectives about broadening opportunities
for pupils in Key Stage 4 so that they could learn in the workplace,
for example. It may well be that we would say the reduction in
car use is fairly modest, but we think that what is being gained
educationally from this pilot is very good, and we want to look
at that and see what the results are. We do not want to be too
rigid.
Q48 Mr Chaytor: Has all this been
set out anywhere? You started by saying that reduction in car
use is the main criteria for evaluation; and now you are extending
it to choice in curriculum at Key Stage 4. Is there a sheet of
paper that sets out all the possible criteria that might be based
on evaluation; or is this going to be made up as we go along?
Ms Jones: I do not think it is
fair to say it is made up as we go along. We are asking LEAs to
bring proposals to us about the pilot schemes which will reduce
cars on the school run, and we are also suggesting a number of
other objectives which might be relevant at local level. We want
local education authorities to do the analysis and decide what
is important for them, and then come to us and say "this
is what might reasonably be achieved" looking at the other
resources we have to bring to the scheme, such as money from the
local transport plan, perhaps LPSAs and perhaps doing something
with concessionary fare schemes. Things are quite complex at local
level, and it would be wrong for us to set too many firm objectives
because there is a lot of creativity. We are talking to LEAs at
the moment, and some of them are proposing things that perhaps
we have not thought of. At this point, it would be wrong to close
things down too early.
Q49 Mr Chaytor: You have mentioned
Key Stage 4. You mentioned the question of co-ordination at Key
Stage 4. Are there any other objectives you have flagged up in
advance?
Ms Jones: Yes, there are a number
of objectives in the action plan, and we have reiterated them
in here. We are interested in things such as, for example, extended
schools' activities that will offer a much broader range of activities
over and above the school day. We are interested in making sure
that pupils from all backgrounds are able to participate in sport,
which will often mean after-school sport.
Q50 Mr Chaytor: These are principles
underlying the pilots rather than objectives or targets by which
the pilots are going to be judged successful.
Ms Jones: That is right, yes.
Q51 Mr Chaytor: We do not have a
set of objectives which will be published and which will form
the criteria for the ultimate evaluation. How are we going to
know? Who is going to decide and what will be the criteria on
which they will be judged successful?
Ms Jones: We will do that individually
with each scheme. As I said earlier, at this point we cannot anticipate
what is going to come to us; and some local authorities are being
very creative. We want to leave it open until we have got specific
schemes, and at that point we will agree targets.
Q52 Mr Chaytor: Why is that the total
number of pilots that you are looking for—20 in England
and six in Wales?
Ms Jones: I think you have to
strike a balance here, do you not? First of all, a pilot scheme
cannot cover everybody because that would make a nonsense of it.
On the other hand, we have got to have a reasonable number of
local education authorities because we want to make sure that
we are covering quite a wide range of circumstances. The other
complexity is that we think we are going to get some groups
of educational authorities, particularly smaller authorities,
coming together, because they have lots of flows across boundaries.
When we took all those things into consideration, we thought that
20 was a reasonable number. Whether we will get them in the first
round or not, I do not know. It is too early to say.
Mr Chaytor: Why not invite all LEAs to
submit bids, and if they are good bids approve them? It seems
an arbitrary number, but if there are 46 excellent bids it seems
arbitrary to limit it to 26.
Q53 Chairman: As you are not giving
them any money, it is not costing you anything!
Ms Jones: The Secretary of State
has decided to proceed quite carefully, and the right way to proceed
is—
Q54 Mr Chaytor: The Secretary of
State decided on 26.
Ms Jones: Twenty. I think Wales
decided on six. We said between six and 12 areas because of this
business of groups coming together. We have got a number of interested
groups.
Q55 Mr Chaytor: Can I ask about the
question of costs, because the memorandum you supplied to the
Committee, which is extremely informative, provides some very
interesting figures about the costs of school transport. The one
that caught my eye was the increase over the last six years in
the cost of local bus contracts, which appear to be going up at
about 17% a year. These are staggering increases.
Ms Jones: Could I just strike
a note of caution here. These are the percentage increases when
bus contracts are renewed, and the average length of contract
is three years, so these are not year-on-year increases.
Q56 Mr Chaytor: What is the figure
for year-on-year increases? The total number across the country
on school transport has increased significantly.
Ms Jones: Yes.
Q57 Mr Chaytor: That is one of the
Government's concerns.
Ms Jones: That is right.
Q58 Mr Chaytor: What is your best
estimate of year-on-year increases in terms of prices?
Ms Jones: I do not think I would
want to make a guess, because some of these contracts are just
flat but most of them have the renewal cost but then have an inflationary
increase year-on-year built in, so it is quite a complex picture.
Q59 Mr Chaytor: Do you have a figure
for the annual increase in the total costs of running school transport?
Ms Jones: Yes, we have provided
these for you.
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