16+ School Transport Review

*PETITION RE-OPENED*

TO THE OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE - We, the undersigned, call upon and require Buckinghamshire County Council to implement an urgent review of their 16+ School Transport Policy. It has been poorly consulted and we believe it to be a hugely ill considered decision to impose such exorbitant charges on students and their parents, simply to continue accessing their schools. We require urgent steps to withdraw this wholly unacceptable and unjustly arrived at policy, which penalises the very people the government claim they want to encourage into further education. Countrywide, the charges vary wildly from county to county, indeed, in the Greater London area students enjoy the privilege of free travel under the Oyster card scheme at all times. The standard of our children's education should not be subject to whether parents can afford the transport or not. This new regime especially effects parents who are not on benefits, the "squeezed middle".



Details of covering letter sent with the Petition: (Signatures gained for submission ON 25th April 2013: 1,269)

 Dear Councillors,

We have asked Ruth Vigor to present you with this petition to form part of the consultation and review of home to school transport, which was agreed at the Overview & Scrutiny Committee meeting in October 2012 attended by Sally Roberts and Jonathan Dodd on behalf of the signatories to this petition.

At that meeting, we presented the two main pillars of our campaign for fair fares.

Firstly that the charge based on distance is unfair and punitive to those parents and their children living further from their schools, that the difference between the lowest charge of £75 per year to the highest of £1,100 is wholly unacceptable, as is the Admin charge applied to those who choose to pay termly which can be as high as an extra £200.

It should be borne in mind that the actual cost of each seat on the bus is £600 per year so those students being made to pay more than £600 are in effect subsidising the students who pay less!

It has been suggested that the Admin charge which was discussed at the Committee meeting is now actually a discount offered to those who pay the year in advance, but in any event the home to school transport service should be offered to all students on an equal footing, so both distance based charging and surcharges effect those furthest away and less able to pay, are simply an extra unwarranted tax.

 

16+ School Transport Group

 

 

 

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