Examination of Witnesses (Questions 440
- 441)
THURSDAY 13 MAY 2004
MR MIKE
HIRST, MR
STEVE BROACH,
MR DAVID
CONGDON, MS
JILL HARRISON
AND MR
DAVID BUTLER
Q440 Mr Chaytor: That undermines
your argument for variable charging that you put before, does
it not? Who would be eligible for variable charging and who would
be eligible for a flat rate charge?
Mr Butler: I do not think it undermines
the argument, it just makes the case for variable charging more
complex. Once you begin to get into the issue of variable charging
it will become very complex indeed. Specialist schools is something
else that has to be considered because, on the one hand, you have
got an encouragement for specialist schools but if you then put
that alongside the transport issues in this Bill you have potentially
got one government policy fighting another one.
Mr Barry Sheerman resumed the Chair.
Q441 Valerie Davey: You will have
to leave that one with us, I think, we will look at it in some
depth as time goes on. Can I thank our earlier witnesses who had
an enforced extension to their time here, we are grateful. Is
there anything immediately that you want to add?
Mr Hirst: I would just ask you
to spare a thought for the staff who are going to operate these
extended days from eight to six o'clock and just bear in mind
that schools are places of education, not facilities to enable
two parents to go out to work.
Mr Congdon: I just want to add
to the issue of variable charging which we touched on earlier,
because it is very, very complex. There are issues about to what
extent there should be some guidelines or not as to what would
be reasonable in terms of variable charging. As I understand it,
that is all down to the details of the individual scheme but you
could have situations where the transport is very costly, for
instance, where it is a minicab, would it be on a percentage basis,
would it be on a flat rate basis, etc., what would be the approach
where there are seven children in a family or whatever? I am conscious
of that because in a different form in terms of non-residential
social care there is quite a complex arrangement of guidance for
charging. I just think it is something that is worth giving some
consideration to as to whether there could be some guidance on
what would be reasonable and what would be unreasonable in terms
of charging for transport.
Mr Broach: I would just like to
make the point that transport is creating serious equity issues
for families with disabled children. I have two specific examples
of that, one which has been mentioned already, independent special
schools. We have had several cases where an authority has agreed
to place a child in an independent special school on the condition
that the parent provides the transport, which means that it is
nothing to do with the child's needs as to whether or not they
go to the school, it is whether the parent is able to facilitate
the child getting there. On the 14-19 curriculum, extended schools,
all of these schemes that are about providing opportunities for
children are going to end up being dependent on the ability to
get to them and back from them at a later date. If we are looking
for boundaries, given that it costs on average three times as
much to bring up a disabled child as a non-disabled child in any
case, I feel that we could argue for a boundary that requires
local authorities not to charge disabled children for access to
these transport schemes.
Ms Harrison: I would echo what
Steve has just said about the poverty issues. Studies indicate
that around half of the households with disabled children can
be defined as poor in that they lack some of life's basic necessities,
and we are talking very basic: 35% of parents unable to afford
two pairs of shoes. We are not talking about a very high threshold
of poverty. The last thing that any of us would want to see is
our children priced out of being able to get to school. We do
feel that the cost of administering a means test, given that most
of the people you are applying it to are going to be too poor
to have to pay anyway, might well outweigh the small revenue that
is gained from it.
Valerie Davey: Can I thank you all very
much indeed for your contributions this morning. I note that the
Chairman has returned and he would say anyway that if as you go
home, on whatever transport you are going to use, you think to
yourself "if only we had added" or there was an aspect
you did not really develop then please do write to the Committee.
We would be very pleased to have any other feedback from you.
Thank you all very much.
Chairman: Can I thank you for allowing
me to slip out and ask a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
There was no discourtesy to our witnesses. Thank you very much
for putting up with that. I shall be outside checking if you are
driving away in a Ford!
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