School Transport

Debate between Jim Sheridan and Tim Loughton

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

I have barely 12 minutes in which to take up all those questions, and I have a horrible feeling that I am not going to finish what is a fairly long and technical speech. If that happens, I shall give my unsaid comments to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). I congratulate her on bringing this important subject to the Chamber. I agree with all the considerations that she raises. She made some important points, and I pay tribute to the way that she has rolled up her sleeves and seen the situation in her constituency, as a good MP should.

Other hon. Members presented their points well. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) described the inconsistencies over the three-mile limit and different treatment of people in the same family and said that common sense was required. That is a fair point.

The point about late notification made by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) is particularly relevant. I have come across that problem in my constituency, when parents have been told at the very end of term that, from the following term, the bus will not be available. We must do a lot better on that front.

My hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) mentioned considerations about special educational needs, which I shall discuss if I have time. We need greater flexibility there. There are examples of local authorities that will pay or subsidise parents, where they can, to provide the transport for those children themselves, rather than using expensive chaperoned taxis or school buses. Certainly flexibility is a requirement with SEN.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) also talked about considerations in rural constituencies in particular and the one-size-fits-all approach, which clearly will not work. We must ensure that we have a school transport system that reflects people’s lifestyles in the 21st century, as well as changes in education and educational establishments.

By saying all that, I have eaten into my time. My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough has asked for clarity on four key points, and I will endeavour to provide that during my response. I agree with the broad thrust of her remarks. First, school transport is one of those areas where local decisions really do affect local people, and it should not be for Whitehall to dictate such decisions.

Secondly, in my position as Minister for Children, I hear from parents that the safety of their children is one of their paramount concerns. I have been holding discussions with my colleagues from the Department for Transport, particularly with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), because we have a joint interest in this matter. This is clearly an area in which more work needs to be done, and this debate will be a useful addition to the wider discussion. I shall include hon. Members who are present today and others in the work that we will undertake in the coming weeks and months.

Thirdly, local authorities are having to make difficult decisions and to prioritise the services that they provide, but that cannot and should not be at the cost of the safety of children and young people.

In responding to my hon. Friend’s points, I intend to set out the legal basis for home-to-school transport, including the status of guidance available from Government. I want to give details on how it is funded, what routes of redress are available to parents and others and briefly to update the rather slow progress of the review of efficiency and practice commissioned by the Department.

We are debating the Government’s policy on home-to-school transport. Like many areas of education policy that we have inherited, this policy has grown over the past 20 years into a bureaucratic, costly source of frustration for many parents. Local authorities are now spending well in excess of £1 billion a year, yet some are not able to say exactly how many pupils they support or whether that support is meeting the needs of the children who need it most.

As communities have grown and evolved, the links between schools, transport and communities have, if anything, become more fragmented. yet I do not wish to paint too bleak a picture. Some authorities have risen above the challenges and are making savings to their budgets, but without the fuss and furore described by my hon. Friend and other colleagues in the Chamber today. The East Riding of Yorkshire, a predominantly rural authority, has developed an in-house software system combined with Ordnance Survey’s geographical information system to review the efficiency of all its bus routes. The resulting efficiencies arising from the planning and rerouting of a number of existing services, over three years, led to more than £1 million of savings.

The Department decided to start a review to identify and promulgate those very learning points from and for local authorities. Before launching the external review, officials from the Department undertook a review of the legal position to examine whether it required any amendment. The coalition has at its heart an ambition to reduce the inequalities in attainment that we still see in our education system. Too many young people’s destiny is governed by their family background and too few quality places are available to all parents. Only when every school is a good school can parents feel that they have a real choice from which to express a preference. Obviously, school choice is relevant to the transport issue, especially for people who do not live in urban areas.

Increasing the supply of good places is paramount to the coalition, which is why we have expanded the academies’ programme and established the free schools programme, with the first 24 schools now operational. The theory is quite simple: rather than bus the child to the school, bring the school to the child, and give parents and teachers the power to establish a school in their community and reduce the reliance on transport as far as possible. With that rather simple mantra, we concluded that the current legislative basis, while not perfect, is sufficient to meet the Government’s policy ambitions. Our decision was further strengthened by the experience in Northern Ireland, where changes such as revising the statutory walking distances were considered but not proceeded with on the basis that they would have significant funding implications—communications, assessments and so on. Given our economic situation, we were not willing to commit to such a cost.

The legal basis of school transport remains unchanged. Local authorities must provide free home-to-school transport where a child is attending a school beyond the statutory walking distances of two miles for pupils below the age of eight and three miles for those aged eight and over and no suitable arrangements have been made by the local authority for the child to attend a school closer to their home.

The Education and Inspections Act 2006 amended the legislative framework by inserting a number of transport provisions into the Education Act 1996. Of relevance for today’s debate are sections 508B and 508C and schedule 35B of the Act. Section 508B places a duty on local authorities to provide transport for eligible children. Eligible children are defined in schedule 35B. They include those children who are unable to walk to school because of their special educational needs, mobility problems or where they cannot reasonably be expected to walk because the nature of the route. Certain children from low-income families are also eligible under schedule 35B. Such provisions are often referred to as the extended rights.

Section 508C of the Education Act 1996 provides local authorities with discretionary powers to make travel arrangements for those not covered in 508B and make financial provision, in full or in part, for travel under such arrangements. Those provisions apply irrespective of whether the school the child attends is a maintained school, a foundation school, or as my hon. Friend has asked, an academy.

I have told hon. Members that my contribution would be technical, so I will have to continue at this pace. How is this duty funded? Without going into copious details, local authority transport duties are funded through a combination of revenue support grant and local generated council tax. In respect of the extended rights, the Secretary of State for Education provides an additional funding stream which for 2011-12 and 2012-13 amounts to £85 million. As this funding is not ring-fenced, it allows local authorities to work with their communities and set their priorities accordingly.

As my hon. Friend has stated, local authorities have already begun to tackle their spending. However, not all have approached it in the same methodological manner, and I have had a number of letters from concerned families who say that bus routes have been changed or cut and that they have to find, in relative terms, quite significant sums of money. Many decisions are driven solely by financial constraints, but there are examples where the local authority has saved money, managed the communications well and established a sustainable process for future changes. Departmental officials are now working hard to finalise the report and shine a light on those case studies. It is clear from the review that local authorities must make savings and can do so without the effects on provision that many of us have seen and heard about.

Leicestershire’s allocations were £640,000 in 2011-12 and £795,000 this year. Those are not insignificant sums. I am aware that in some authorities this non-ring-fenced funding is proving to be generous, and having met their statutory responsibilities, some authorities are using their discretion in how they meet any demands that they face. That has included making transport arrangements for children who are not entitled to free transport.

I also want to set out the legal basis in respect of safety. I want it to be clear that responsibility for road safety, even in school transport, actually rests with my ministerial colleagues at the Department for Transport. We are as one in our determination to make our roads as safe as possible, while ensuring that common sense is applied. There is a statutory duty on local authorities to ensure that suitable travel arrangements are made for eligible children for the purpose of facilitating their attendance at school. We are quite clear in our statutory guidance that local authorities are under a duty to make travel arrangements where the nature of the route is such that children cannot walk along it in reasonable safety—accompanied as necessary—where the distance is within the statutory walking limit.

In assessing route availability, authorities are obliged to conduct an assessment of the risks that children may encounter on the route. They include the volume and speed of traffic along roads, overhanging trees or branches and ditches, rivers and so on. The age of the children must also be considered and any assessment should take place at the time of day that children are expected to use the route. That is common sense, but it does not always happen. Many local authorities follow the guidelines provided by Road Safety GB, which is the national organisation that represents local government road safety teams across the UK and works with them in fulfilling their statutory role.

While ensuring that children remain safe, local authorities should, quite properly, take advantage of improved measuring technology and route availability that takes into account new building and infrastructure developments, in identifying new and suitable walking routes where previously there was no right of way. That is where the use of new technology, such as the public sector mapping agreement, which provides authorities with free digital geographic mapping data, has resulted in authorities being able to plan more efficient walking and school bus routes. That has led to significant efficiency savings without authorities having to withdraw services. The draft report will recommend better use of freely available public sector data to build a picture of service provision and use.

The processes followed by Road Safety GB are accepted as the industry norm, and that best practice has been built up over many years. Indeed, Road Safety GB is in the process of refreshing its guidance, and although we await the final outcome, I am informed that substantial changes are unlikely. The guidance will continue to reflect both case law and education legislation requirements. It will be amended to be easier to use and follow and to accommodate legislation changes, but there will be no additional pressure on assessors to make walking routes available.

In conducting an assessment of a walking route, there will be an element of subjectivity, given the wide range and mix of roads and surrounding terrain. That makes it difficult to advise on every eventuality and capture the subtleties in a definitive statutory instruction. However, Road Safety GB considers that the guidance sets the parameters appropriately, drawing on case law and education legislation, so that any personal judgment required by assessors is not too great. In the light of those safeguards, further intervention by the Government into assessment practice will simply be a bureaucratic burden, which is something that we are actively trying to resist.

On the subject of local consultation and local decisions, I understand that when proposing changes there is a need for sensitivity and reassurance over children’s safety and that there is an opportunity for parents to challenge and debate with the authority. That is why the statutory guidance states that local authorities should consult widely on proposed policy changes and that at least 28 days, in term time, should be set aside for the process to be completed. Local authorities should also have in place, and publish, a robust appeals procedure for parents to follow should they have a disagreement with regard to the provision of transport. As I am not satisfied that we have such a procedure, I will take the matter away and reconsider it.

[Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)]

Order. We must move on to the next debate.