Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
WEDNESDAY 5 MAY 2004
MR TIM
DAVIES, MS
SHEENA PICKERSGILL,
MR GEOFF
GARDNER, MR
JOHN SYKES,
MR ALLAN
EDMONDSON AND
MR STEVEN
SALMON
Q160 Chairman: What about you, Ms
Pickersgill?
Ms Pickersgill: We are already
doing a lot of it and we have been successful with our LTP bid.
We now have £18.7 million to roll out our scheme across West
Yorkshire, 150 yellow buses. We are doing a lot of what is trying
to be achieved anyway. The bit that we will not be doing is this
charging element.
Q161 Chairman: Are you in for a pilot
or not?
Ms Pickersgill: We have got a
lot on our plates at the moment doing what we are doing.
Q162 Chairman: You have got loads
of money anyway. Why would you go for a scheme that would give
you nothing? Would you like to charge, Ms Pickersgill?
Ms Pickersgill: I think it is
a very difficult issue. I agree with the point that the Bill is
making in terms of the arbitrary distinction now between the two
miles and three miles and children having free travel over those
points and I agree that that needs to be reviewed and looked at.
The charging issue is a difficult one and I think it is difficult
for PTEs.
Q163 Chairman: There is no point
in looking at the 1944 legislation unless you are going to look
at the money. That is what it is about, is it not? It is either
free over a certain mileage or it is not and the Bill clearly
says that is what it is going to allow the pilots to look at.
Ms Pickersgill: I believe it is
time for a change. Obviously there has not been a change since
1944 and it is time for a change, but I believe the changes needs
to be much bigger and on a much grander scale. If we are serious
about our children's transport and not just school transport we
need to take a much bigger view and work with other agencies to
make this change. If we do have to charge then I think we will
have to look at ways in which we relate that to income. At the
moment in West Yorkshire we have our scheme up and running and
that is something for members to discuss back in West Yorkshire,
to see if they would be interested in going forward with a pilot.
Mr Salmon: It seems to us there
is a paradox in the Bill in that the areas where there is a large
proportion of people travelling free and, therefore, potentially
the largest yield from a scheme if it were put in are not the
areas where school run congestion is the biggest problem. In a
county like Devon, which I know reasonably well, you might want
to yield some money from charging people from the rural areas
but spend it all on measures in Exeter, but that might not be
considered fair or reasonable.
Mr Davies: We must not forget
the capital rich, revenue poor situation which always comes up
when we are looking at funding and the provision of public sector
support. Whilst West Yorkshire have been very successful through
their LTP to obtain the capital money for their scheme, of course
they have still got to find the revenue money to keep it going,
that is the main issue in terms of the balance between an income
stream from charging, if any authorities wish to go down that
route and the total funding which would be required to put the
additional services in place to help all those children who currently
do not receive any assistance at all. There are figures around
which suggest for a typical county you might need an extra £1
million of revenue funding every year to make the difference which
is being sought from the point of view of charging one group of
children to help pay for services for the other group.
Q164 Paul Holmes: Tim Davies talked
about the speed with which the Government had moved. Then there
is the question of how quickly the pilots are supposed to come
to fruition. Sheena Pickersgill said that the timescale is far
too long. If these pilots—once we can find somebody who
wants to do one—do not complete until 2011, that is seven
or eight years, it is two parliaments away. If we have got urgent
transport problems now, what is the point of this Bill if it is
kicking it into touch for seven or eight years?
Mr Davies: There is a problem
in the timing and the timescales of the different stages of this
process, of getting pilots organised and then implemented and
then reporting. We must not under-estimate the amount of planning
and consultation and advance notice that you would need to give
to parents in order to bring a pilot in. For instance, I believe
that, with the best will in the world, on legislation moving through
Parliament and so on, an authority that really was keen on a pilot
would not actually get it ready for implementation until September
2007 because it would probably have to give at least a year's
advance warning to parents that this pilot was being introduced.
Once we have got them in 2007, of course, it might be said that
two full academic years of a pilot should be sufficient to see
whether it is working or not and it might be suggested that the
pilots should be reporting in 2009-10.
Q165 Paul Holmes: That is putting
it off for quite a long time before we can nationally roll out
any pilots and say these really work. In terms of the initiatives
that you have all described that you are already doing, are there
enough initiatives for the Government to say we are going to have
the pilots already, other than the charging issue? Why can they
not look at all the initiatives that are already underway and
take those as pilots?
Mr Davies: I believe there is
a lot of good practice that has been developed over the last two
or three years and it may well be that there is a need for some
more of the research to back up that good practice and then for
it to be collated fairly rapidly and disseminated to all authorities
so that we could, hopefully, raise the whole standard throughout
the country through the work that is being done by some of the
more forward thinking authorities already.
Q166 Paul Holmes: Does Steven want
to say something?
Mr Salmon: I think we need the
pilots because we have a good understanding of what happens when
we improve things, but we have not got a good understanding of
what happens when we start charging for things.
Q167 Paul Holmes: We have already
had one or two questions on the unintended consequences, but what
is the knock-on effect of it? On the congestion issue, if you
are moving people away outside the five minute walking to school
zone, are you not just moving the car parking congestion away
from the immediate vicinity of the school to a few other points
that are five minutes further away from the school?
Mr Gardner: We are hoping that
once people get into the habit of walking five minutes then, if
they currently live six minutes away, they will think, "Oh,
well, let's just walk the whole way", and gradually the walking
culture will spread out. In terms of spreading that message across,
the way that is working at the moment is I am spending North Yorkshire
County Council's time developing this initiative. I would very
much welcome someone coming in from the centre and saying, "Let's
do this professionally and let us roll it out across the country",
that would be great.
Q168 Paul Holmes: If you introduced
more schemes along the lines of the yellow bus scheme, which are
safer and more secure, does that knock out all the small operators
who cannot compete on that sort of scale?
Ms Pickersgill: It depends how
this scheme is put together. We have worked very hard with operators
in putting this together to make sure everybody is aware of it
and knows what it is we are looking for and how we package it
and how we put the clusters together to allow people to tender.
I am glad you raise that point because there is another related
issue that is very important for us and that is the current situation
in relation to driver shortage, the national problem we have got,
the bus operators reporting very high turnover levels and shortages.
We have an initiative in West Yorkshire called the West Yorkshire
Transport, Education and Skills Alliance and what we recognise
is we need to work really hard with the operators out there to
make sure that there is that pool of drivers available. As the
issue is bigger than that in transport we need to make sure that
we have got a pool of talent now and in the future, so we want
the best people from whatever disciplines. We are doing a lot
of work with schools and employers on the change of culture and
all sorts of things. The driver issue is a big one and that is
felt by the smaller operators and the big operators and we are
working very closely with them to try and address that at the
moment.
Q169 Paul Holmes: One of the points
that have been made about the Bill is how would you measure its
success, is it to save money, is it to cut congestion and pollution
or is it for educational purposes? Special needs transport is
one of biggest components in the costs of school transport. I
was in a deaf unit in a local junior school on Friday in my constituency
and the teachers there were saying that one of the problems is
the transport costs. They are bringing children in from all over
North Derbyshire, so you might have a taxi picking up a deaf child
to come to the deaf unit, but they are also taking a child to
Ashgate Croft special school on the other side of Chesterfield
and, depending which one is dropped off first, one of them is
missing the first part of the morning's lessons. If you are going
to rationalise all the transport in order to be more efficient
and to share things with the NHS and this sort of thing, would
that not then start to undermine some of the educational objectives
you are aiming at in getting kids to school on time for the 15
minute part of the literacy spelling programme that only takes
place in the first 15 minutes of school? Do you have to put the
saving of money on transport costs ahead of the educational purpose
of the transport?
Mr Davies: No, I do not believe
we should and that is why I raised at the beginning the balance
between education factors and transport factors. We may have to
accept that in order to meet the education objectives there may
be some additional costs on transport, but clearly it is a challenge
to the professionals in my Association to make sure that it can
all be fitted together and the children arrive at the right place
at the right time in order to make the best of their education
opportunities. It need not be as you say and it may well be that
it just needs a bit more thought to plan the transport a little
differently to make sure that it can all fit together and that
is what our integrated units are about.
Q170 Chairman: How sophisticated
are your methodologies? One hears that the most brilliant transport
logistics companies in this country are the big supermarkets and
the mail order people and they are very sophisticated, they use
global positioning satellites and so on. Are you really up-to-speed
on all of that in your world?
Mr Davies: I have to admit that
there are not many authorities yet which have invested heavily
in high-tech solutions to scheduling transport and so on, but
we have some very knowledgeable, dedicated transport professionals
who are doing the job day in and day out and they do a fantastic
job in terms of fitting the transport together.
Q171 Chairman: So there is scope
for the application of much more technology to make efficient
use of the vehicles that Paul is discussing?
Mr Davies: Yes. It is inevitable,
Chairman, that as we try and bring in more users, more different
agencies sharing the same common planning and commissioning service,
we will need more sophisticated software and technology to help
us do that job, yes.
Q172 Paul Holmes: The only other
point is this balance between educational purpose and cost and
congestion and so forth which you have touched on verbally and
it is in the written evidence you have submitted. In some of the
written evidence you talk about Welsh language schools, for example,
and you talk about faith schools and then there is the issue of
all the special schools in terms of engineering colleges and maths
schools and language schools. Does the guidance you get when you
are doing your pilots make it clear? Is your prime purpose to
meet educational objectives or parental choice or is it to run
an efficient transport system, to cut congestion or to save money?
What is the measure of success?
Mr Davies: At the simplest level
we are given the customer's needs and that could be the Education
Department, so it is actually all around policy development, policy
decisions by the Education Service. Once they have decided that
and they give us the children to be carried it is then our duty
and responsibility to carry them in the most efficient way, which
does meet those education objectives as well as the cost-effective
transport objectives. We may well be able to point out to our
education colleges that if there were subtle policy changes or
if they made a particular definition clearer it might be possible
to bring in additional measures to change transport and thereby
be more cost-effective and save money. At the simplest level we
are working to the policy as set out by our education colleagues
and it might well be that there is a need for more joined-up thinking
at the policy making level across both central and local government
in order to get a better use of the total network.
Q173 Paul Holmes: I was thinking
back to something Geoff said earlier about how you cannot get
the genie of parental choice back into the bottle. How far is
there a voice coming from the people who organise transport saying
you have got to be clear what your priorities are, is it parental
choice or is it x, y or z?
Mr Gardner: A lot of this is very
new. I agree with what John said earlier. We are talking to our
LEA colleagues at last and it is great, as a result of all the
changes they have pushed towards us and us towards them and that
has been marvellous. My view is that what we ought to be looking
at here is the overall quality of life. We have been doing a European
project and it is so depressing when you go to any of the cities
in Northern Europe and you see children on the streets playing
and people cycling to work as if it is normal, they are not dressed
up like a Christmas tree and wearing crash helmets and all the
rest of it, they are just doing it. Here we are with these dismal
empty streets and cul-de-sacs and the kids are getting fatter.
Wayne Hemingway was saying recently that we have double the number
of young people in young offenders' institutions compared with
Europe[3].
We have a certain way of living that seems to me to be going the
wrong way. In the space between the home and the school we could
be getting more social interaction. One of our initiatives now
is called Park at a Friend's House; even if it is not five minutes
walk, go and park there and walk the last bit. We realised that
suicides are now killing twice the number of people as road accidents,
it is the leading cause of death in young men. My point being
that there is strong justification for transport and education
people to work together to tackle this.
Q174 Paul Holmes: Would you criticise
the Transport Bill in that there is this lack of joined-up thinking
and vision?
Mr Gardner: I think there is a
strong case for saying it is incumbent on education authorities
as much as it is on transport authorities to do something about
this whole thing, yes.
Q175 Mr Turner: Am I right that only
in one of the seven authorities represented here have members
explicitly rejecting charging and that is Mr Davies' authority,
but in six of the others it is anticipated that members would
reject charging? No. Ms Pickersgill, where would they accept charging?
Ms Pickersgill: My answer suggested
that we have not discussed it with members at this point. What
I was saying is we obviously need to take what work we have done
so far, what work we are going to be doing in the future and this
Bill and discuss it with our members.
Q176 Mr Turner: Members of the Local
Education Authorities?
Ms Pickersgill: Of the Passenger
Transport Authority.
Q177 Mr Turner: But it is the LEAs
who make the decision whether to pilot.
Ms Pickersgill: We have five LEAs,
so it is up to each of the LEAs to determine what it is they want
to do, but they will work with us as a Passenger Transport Authority
to bring something forward.
Mr Sykes: We have already had
a discussion with the Environment Department and the Education
Department, which is now called CSF, and that initial review has
said we are already a centre of excellence for school travel.
We have an awful lot of very positive things going on in the authority.
We charge children for using our half-price saver card. We are
also trying to introduce a half-price rail scheme.
Q178 Mr Turner: As far as those who
are entitled to free transport at the moment are concerned, what
is the members' policy on charging?
Mr Sykes: It is that we do not
charge.
Q179 Mr Turner: Mr Gardner?
Mr Gardner: The same.
3 Note by witness: Wayne Hemingway, Chairman,
Building for Life, Astounding Areas and Spectacular Spaces!, 9th
Annual Quality Streetscapes Conference, Landor Conference, Royal
Festival Hall, London, 27 April 2004. Back
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