Examination of Witnesses (Questions 108
- 119)
WEDNESDAY 5 MAY 2004
MR TIM
DAVIES, MS
SHEENA PICKERSGILL,
MR GEOFF
GARDNER, MR
JOHN SYKES,
MR ALLAN
EDMONDSON AND
MR STEVEN
SALMON
Q108 Chairman: May I welcome you
all to the proceedings. You will know that the reason you are
here is to help with our inquiry into the legislation the Government
surprised some of us with in the Queen's Speech. In a sense it
does dovetail the work we have done on school admissions and how
the distances students travel to attend school and college impacts
on the school transport situation. We are very grateful that you
found the time to be with us in order to enlighten us. Given the
many witnesses we have I cannot ask you all to make an opening
statement, but would one of you like to say anything to open up
this session or do you want to go straight into questions?
Mr Davies: Thank you, Chairman.
I am the Chairman of the Association of Transport Co-ordinating
Officers and also the Head of the Transport Co-ordination Service
at Devon County Council. We are very grateful for the opportunity
to give evidence on the School Travel Scheme's draft Bill, particularly
as we missed, because of the short timescale, the opportunity
to give evidence to the Transport Select Committee when it considered
this proposed legislation. We are very pleased to see that there
is now some concentrated effort going into school travel and that
particularly its impact on the school run and on congestion and
the wider transport agenda is actually now getting some attention
from both the DfT and the DfES. We would commend the Secretary
of State for Education in moving quickly from his action plan
of last September to the draft legislation before us. We are not
used to the Government perhaps moving quite so fast on transport
matters. We believe, too, that this consideration of traffic and
the traffic impact of education are long overdue. We appreciate
that there is a balance to be made between education factors and
transport factors, but we think the time is now right to consider
transport more seriously. Schools are very big generators of traffic,
they do need travel plans just like any big employer needs a workplace
travel plan and it does need the partnership of the whole school
community, the head teachers, governors, teachers, parents, children,
to work with the local authorities and bus operators, in the case
of my particular interest, to get the best we can out of the resources
we have available, with the least impact on the surrounding community
and as a positive contribution to the wellbeing and transport
effectiveness of local networks. We would very much support the
school travel plans initiative of the Government. We hope they
are going to continue the funding of that initiative well beyond
2006, which is the current end date, and we believe that buses
should feature much more strongly in school travel plans alongside
walking and cycling. Can I just raise three issues which have
come out of the Transport Select Committee Report where there
was considerable criticism of local authorities. First of all,
they questioned the issues of safety, quality, best value and
our contracting processes. I think we would have to make the point
in relation to the safety and roadworthiness of school buses that
we are very much reliant on the government system for construction
and use of public service vehicles and the vehicle and operator
monitoring and inspection processes for ensuring that all the
buses are roadworthy. That is not to say that they are all in
the best presentable condition, of course. We believe we are doing
as good a job as we can within the national system. There was
some criticism of the efficiency, co-ordination and integration.
I think I could now estimate that about 70% of all councils who
have a school transport responsibility are actually planning and
managing the delivery of school transport through a co-ordinated
transport management unit.
Q109 Chairman: Did you say 70 or
80%?
Mr Davies: 70%. The other 30%
are probably thinking about it. My Association is very actively
promoting that these councils move to the same system that the
70% have already adopted.
Q110 Chairman: How integrated is
that, is it across health and social services?
Mr Davies: It certainly is across
school transport, local bus services procurement, social services
and many others. Many of the more forward looking authorities
are now working with their local health trusts to incorporate
health transport as well. Two final points, if I may. The level
of funding is critical. What is proposed by Government, if taken-up
and developed through these pilots, is not cost-neutral, there
will have to be additional funding to make it work and the planning
and administration costs to bring in the travel schemes will be
there as well. School opening and closing times, some influence
on those times is vital to getting more effective transport.
My Association would certainly promote the idea of quality networks,
the sort of partnership I mentioned earlier on with the school
community working with the local authority and bus operators to
get better innovative networks for local communities, including
their schools. Thank you.
Q111 Chairman: Thank you very much
for that opening statement. Tim, why do we need this Bill at all
when all the evidence is you are doing very innovative things
in local authorities? As you say, 70% have got an integrated programme,
some of which are very sophisticated. You are conscious of your
responsibilities to cut costs and to run a more efficient system.
Why do we need this Bill?
Mr Davies: We certainly needed
the action plan to focus attention on innovation and doing things
differently. There is a lot wrong with the present school transport
system.
Q112 Chairman: Is the action plan
in the legislation?
Mr Davies: No, but it is the background
to this proposed legislation.
Q113 Chairman: You do not need a
Bill to have an action plan.
Mr Davies: No, not necessarily.
I was just going to say that maybe it is not absolutely necessary
to have a Bill, but we do need to get some innovation and pilots
clearly are a good way forward to test out the different approaches.
If there is a need for some change in the legislation to allow
those pilots then clearly we need this Bill.
Q114 Chairman: What difference is
it going to make to someone like Metro? Here you are, you have
been given a lot of money from Government to extend what has been
a yellow bus pilot and you are merrily getting on with the job.
Why do you need this Bill? What will this do to enhance your position?
Ms Pickersgill: Yes, you are quite
right, at Metro we are getting on with it. We have a vision for
school transport in West Yorkshire. What we recognise is we need
to have a step change in provision out there and to do that you
need vision and leadership and you need something that helps you
to get the agencies to work together, whether that is DfES, DfT,
ODPM, the police, health authorities. I cannot speak on behalf
of the PTA and the members, but on a personal note I would say
that the Bill is welcome if it helps to get more children out
of cars and onto buses. I feel it is a little bit narrow in its
focus and a bit too lengthy in its timescales. As I have suggested
already, at West Yorkshire what we have done is we have actually
grasped the nettle and said what is it that parents actually want,
and I speak as a parent myself. What parents are after is transport
that is reliable; they want safe routes to school. Once parents
leave their child they want to know, whether it is at a localised
pick-up point or whatever, that child is going to be picked up
and delivered to school safely. With the yellow bus vision what
we have done is set out what we believe parents are looking for
in terms of getting their children to school safely.
Q115 Chairman: None of that is in
the Bill. The question I am asking you is what helps you in this
Bill to do the job you are doing? If you are saying you believe
it is right that you could get more children out of private cars
and either walking to school or cycling to school or onto buses,
in a sense one could argue that in this Bill you are going to
have the reverse effect because you are going to start charging
on an ability to pay basis people who otherwise up to now get
free school transport. Surely that will put a great temptation
on parents to start putting their kids in the car and driving
them to school. What guarantee is there that this Bill will help
get kids out of private cars? It might even work the opposite
way. Is that not a worry you have?
Ms Pickersgill: Metro's aim is
to get children to school safely.
Q116 Chairman: What if the Government
says to you in future that you can charge children who live over
three miles away from the school and two miles if they are of
a younger age, if they can afford it, what is the impact on your
bus services there?
Ms Pickersgill: Perhaps I could
give you an example. A single-decker bus on average costs approximately
£22,000 per year and so the daily cost is about £114,that
is an average of £2.28 per child. Working on that basis,
if an LEA were able to charge children to travel, potentially
if they were to charge 50p for the return trip, they would be
able to increase capacity by about 25% and if you up that to £1
it would be 50%. So there is that increase in terms of option
and capability for LEAs. At Metro we want to work with LEAs to
make sure we can improve transport provision to schools and if
this Bill helps in that way then obviously we are supportive of
that. As I said in my opening remarks, Chairman, I believe there
is more that can be done by broadening the scope of the Bill to
work with other agencies as well and also perhaps to deliver quicker
than is perhaps suggested through the Bill.
Q117 Chairman: I am laying down a
challenge, which is why we do need a Bill. Much of the evidence
that you have given us—I am talking about ATCO and others
here—is not about the Bill, you can do it without a Bill.
Why do we need this Bill?
Mr Edmondson: The Confederation
of Passenger Transport represents bus and coach operators. We
accept that the Bill offers an opportunity for a framework in
which the examples that you have just heard could best be delivered.
You are right to say that there is a risk that by charging for
transport it will put people off, but, by the same token, there
is also an opportunity, although we are sceptical of it, for that
kind of additional revenue to be able to come back into the safety
and quality of provided school transport. At the end of the day,
if the Bill is there to try and encourage the shift away from
the school run and the congestion that that causes then in our
view that has got to be a good thing.
Mr Gardner: I am here really representing
the people that are doing school travel plans in a more general
sense and I guess it is a timely opportunity for me to say, "Remember,
there is more to life and even more to transport than getting
from A to B". We are very keen on telling the children we
are working with now that travel in a way is what we do in the
space between buildings. The architects design the buildings and
what we choose to do between those buildings is up to us. It is
an opportunity for children to have an interface with the outside
world, to see the people, to see nature and to interact with their
civic environment as well as things like exercise, both in terms
of their health and also letting off steam at the end of the day.
It is also a chance for them to be seen to be doing their bit
in terms of the environment, although that is not necessarily
the largest component of it. I think it is worth remembering at
this point that there is a lot more to the bit between the home
and the school than just being on a bus.
Q118 Chairman: We already have a
quinquennial transport travel plan, do we not? I think the next
one is coming up in 2005.
Mr Gardner: Yes.
Q119 Chairman: You have already got
that. What is that called?
Mr Gardner: The Local Transport
Plan.
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