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School transport shake-up
Page 46
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Councils may be free to slash £68m cost
CHILDREN who live closer than three miles to their school could in future be entitled to have transport provided by the local authorities, if plans revealed in a consultation document issued by the Department of Education and Science come to fruition.
At first sight this could be seen to open the door for more school coach and bus services to be provided, but a closer examination of the document shows that the legal obligations to provide school transport could be removed, leaving the final decision up to local authorities.
Since the document stresses the ever increasing cost of providing transport for school children as a reason for reorganisation, it leaves the door wide open for the councils to construct plans that would reduce this expenditure.
The cost of providing free school transport in England and Wales is about £68 million under the present arrangements which oblige authorities to provide free transport only for pupils living beyond the statutory walking distances (2 miles for children up to eight years; three miles for older pupils).
The total cost to local education authorities of providing free transport is currently approaching £75m. (This figure includes inter-school transport and transport for pupils in fur ther education following school-type courses.) An earlier consultation paper published in 1973 said. that "parents should have a right to ask their local education authority to provide or arrange transport for their children to and from the nearest suitable school," and that "authorities should have in general a duty to provide such transport."
But the new paper proposes • instead that "the local authority should have the right to determine the circumstances, whether of distance, or safety, or personal circumstances, in which transport should be provided," thus removing their legal obligations. The intention to improve school transport is demonstrated by the fact that the document points out that "large sections of the public no longer regard it as reasonable to require a child under eight to walk two miles to school or one over eight to walk three miles." Also it states "there is a growing concern over the exposure of children to modern traffic and other hazards even over short distances."
But authorities more conscious of the cost of providing transport than their social obligations would be relieved of their legal obligations to pro vide any transport whatsoever.
A suggestion is made that would "require each authority to fix a uniform charge for normal journeys between home and school irrespective of distance or age of pupil, based on a proportion of the adult bus fare charged in the district over a distance to be prescribed by Ministers." The DES suggests this could be half the adult fare for three miles.
Unless its suggestions are accepted the DES suggests that it would abandon any attempt at maintaining a national policy and leave local authorities free to do whatever they choose.