Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Education and Schools presented a report on the outcome of a review of the Council’s current home-to-school travel assistance policy.

The Cabinet Member advised that the review had taken account of revised statutory guidance issued by the Department for Education (DfE) in July 2014 and the ongoing pressures on the service’s budget.  A number of different options had been considered and the two key changes to the policy were:

a)   A narrowing of the eligibility criteria for home-to-school travel assistance to mirror the Council’s statutory obligations; and

b)  A removal of automatic entitlement to travel provision for certain groups where no automatic legal duty to offer travel assistance existed, with greater use of discretion on a case-by-case basis.

The revised proposals had been subject to full public consultation over a 12-week period and had received the overwhelming support of respondents.  The Cabinet Member for Finance and Central Services referred to the projected savings from the revised proposals which were intended to bring the service back within budget, although it was pointed out that the financial projections were based on the current number of service users and an increase to that number would have an adverse impact.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the outcome of the public consultation on the draft proposed revisions to the Council’s Home to School Transport Assistance Policy, as set out in the consultation report at Appendix 1 to the report;

(ii)  Agree the proposed revisions to the policy as set out in section 2 of the report; and

(iii)  Adopt the new Home to School Transport Assistance Policy as set out at Appendix 2 to the report.