Council Rejects Bid to Change Unpopular Home-to-School Transport Policy

North Yorkshire councillors have voted to keep in place a controversial home-to-school transport policy after hearing a return to the old system would cause “chaos” for the authority.

Despite months of criticism from parents and campaigners, members of the authority voted by 45 votes to 35 against a motion to revert to using ‘catchment’ to decide eligibility for free school transport.

The vote at County Hall, in Northallerton, means North Yorkshire Council will press ahead with the new policy of only offering free transport to a child’s nearest school.

Councillors agreed last July that the authority would only offer free school transport to a child’s nearest school, rather than using the previous catchment system to determine eligibility.

Yesterday's meeting was called by opposition councillors who wanted the authority to cancel the policy change.

Councillors arrived at the meeting to a protest from around 100 parents affected by the new rules.

The public gallery was packed during the meeting with a live link provided to another meeting room to allow the public to watch proceedings if they could not fit into the main council chamber.

Council bosses argued that the change was needed to reduce annual costs of more than £50m for home-to-school transport.

They said the move to provide the statutory minimum level of service would deliver savings of up to £4.2m.

But critics said the new system may actually cost money to implement, and was damaging to pupils, schools and rural communities.

Whitby Labour councillor, Neil Swannick, said “unintended consequences” of the policy had emerged since councillors gave it the go-ahead last July.

"it started to become clear that there were unintended consequences in the policy, which hadn't been discussed at the time of the decision.

The unintended consequences are particularly apparent at the edges of the county. And Whitby School, having gone through a very painful amalgamation, is now faced with trying to survive and keep its catchment children along the esque valley and not lose them to red car and Cleveland

what we seem to be seeing is a detachment of primary schools from the catchment schools. That is very clear from the contacts that I've had from governors and members of the primary schools that traditionally have fed into the secondary school in Whitby."

He added: 

“The residents and families are very well aware of the flaws that we should have been aware of in July last year.”

The council's Executive Member for Education, Learning and Skills, Councillor Annabel Wilkinson, said the new policy was needed to tackle the burgeoning bill for home to school transport and said concerns from some people that the new policy would impact the number of pupils attending some North Yorkshire Schools, including Whitby, hadn't be borne out.

"Whitby School has kept the same number of children from last year and the school that was the most vocal about their worries about pupil numbers is holding a waiting list for the first time in years.

We understand this has an impact for some parents, and we are sorry we can't continue to fund this choice, but be assured every eligible child gets transport to their nearest school. Parents can choose which school they want, but it isn't right to ask the taxpayer to pay for their choice. We are one of the highest spending local authorities in the country on homeschool transport, 52 million pounds a year.

That's a quarter of a million pounds for every school day."

Conservative executive member, Councillor Simon Myers, told the meeting 11,000 children had already made a choice on school for September based on the new policy.

He said a return to the previous criteria would throw families “into chaos”, adding: 

“It throws the council into chaos, it makes the job of our officers unworkable and it opens the council up to financial and legal consequences.

“It’s not about the policy, it’s about the efficient administration of this council for the benefits of all of its residents.

“For us to make changes to a policy that was recently enacted, that people have made choices on, is simply irresponsible.”

Deputy leader Gareth Dadd described some of the claims made by critics of the new policy as “outlandish”.

He added: 

“There’s a line in a song ‘we want it all and we want it now’. Well put simply we can’t have it all and we cant have it now.”

Responding to a claim from an opposition councillor that the Conservative group were returning to “Mrs May’s nasty party” by pushing through the policy, he said: 

“Do you think I stand here licking my lips trying to execute this policy that we decided last July that does, we accept, affect parents and children?

“No I don’t, but we do it for one very simple reason, we set out as an administration to protect services to our most vulnerable within this county.”

Campaigners in the public gallery held up banners with the words ‘shame on you’ after the outcome of the vote was announced.

Campaign group School Action Transport Group (STAG) was formed to fight the policy change.

After the vote, parent and group spokesperson, Charlotte Fowler, said: 

“Shame on all those councillors who have let down North Yorkshire’s children today.

“They had a chance to put things right and they blew it. By choosing to keep a broken system in place the council has left children isolated, parents burdened, and schools uncertain about their future.”

Another parent who attended the meeting, Charlotte Poran, from Kirk Hammerton, was left in tears by the outcome of the vote.

Her daughter has a place at Boroughbridge School which is their catchment school but not their nearest school, meaning she will now have to pay around £800 a year for the child to attend the same school as her son.

She said: 

“I’m just sad that I’ve got to go and tell my daughter that we didn’t get them change their minds.”

Speaking after the meeting, Liberal Democrat councillor Bryn Griffiths, who brought the motion to change the policy,  said it was “a great pity” that the Conservative and Independent group voted against the amendment.

He added: 

“They have left parents and children facing the prospect of less choice and in some cases financial hardship if they choose to place their child in their school of choice.

“In my opinion there are both social and financial consequences to the current policy, which is likely to result in decreased budgets for North Yorkshire schools and colleges, with restrictions on the educational offering for our children.”