Agenda item

 

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice to Stephen Loach of Democratic and Scrutiny Services and supplied the text (contact details below) by midday on Wednesday 22 January 2025, three working days before the day of the meeting.  Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes.  Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak at this point in the meeting (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes)

If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chair who will instruct anyone who may be taking a recording to cease while you speak.

 

The following questions or statements, as detailed below, were submitted by members of the public:

 

Rob Macdonald

 

As predicted, the new budget has just revealed that the claimed savings promised from this policy were pure fantasy. A meagre fraction of what you voted for and still no more believable.

 

Today I’ll explain why this shortfall was totally inevitable and why the model on which you based your decision was a smokescreen. Imagine I am offering you a hot drink. Tea or coffee? My shout. Which would you like? Please take a moment and make a real choice.

 

But wait. You can still have your choice, but now it’s going to cost you £10. Or you can have the other choice which is still free. You’re thirsty so you won’t walk away. Which would you choose now? Now look around. I am sure there are people in this room for whom £10 matters. How many of them would stick with their original choice if it now cost £10 while the other option is still free? If you think that anything less than 100 percent would stick with their original choice, then you agree with me that the policy savings claim was always a fantasy. Because the savings you voted for require that 100 percent of parents who currently choose a school other than their nearest, would make the same choice even when it is no longer free.

 

To get the four-point-whatever million pound savings, every one of those parents has to make the same choice rather than switch to the free option. If any choose the remaining free option instead, North Yorkshire Council doesn’t get the claimed savings.

 

You don’t have to believe me. It’s all there in section 5.17 of the Executive Report. Or you can ask Cllr Wilkinson. She knows I’m right. Perhaps you’re thinking it was not ‘£4 million’ but ‘up to £4 million’, whatever that means. I listened to your Full Council debate. No-one said ‘up to’. Cllr Wilkinson endorsed the full £4 million at that debate as does Stuart Carlton now. What’s more, if any parents do choose the free option, the very real costs of providing it are not accounted for. You need to make savings. You absolutely do. But they need to be real savings. Not fantasy ones. And fantasy savings are all this policy has going for it.

 

Our petition asks you to bring back catchment. Doing so could save more than just money. Our petition provides you with the opportunity to act now before reality bites. The budget confirms what we’ve always said. So please, send this back to the Executive and ask them to reconsider this policy in the light of all they now know.

 

Jane Parlour - Chair of Dalton on Tees Parish Council.

 

My name is Jane Parlour and I am the Chair of Dalton on Tees Parish Council.

 

I'm also the mum of four children who all attended their local primary, and catchment secondary, Richmond School.

 

Having discussed the changes to home to school transport policy recently introduced by North Yorkshire Council, our parish council has serious concerns about the impacts of these changes on not only the families and children living in our parish, but on all of those living in the area adjacent to the boundary with County Durham.

 

Using NYC's own calculator, families who for generations have had the certainty of being able to send their children to their 'catchment' secondary school, Richmond Comprehensive, free of charge, will now be expected to pay over £800 per child per year to do so. If they can't afford this they do of course have the 'choice' to send their children to their geographically nearest school across the county boundary in County Durham. Depending on precisely where they live, and whether the school has capacity to accommodate extra children, this could of course see a wide range of secondary schools in Darlington being designated as a pupils nearest available school. The result of this is that children transitioning from small village primaries will be far more likely to be split from the friendship groups that they will have built up over years. Anyone who has children will understand the upheaval and upset this would cause at an already difficult time for them.

 

Because of this policy change families with children already attending Richmond School are facing the choice of whether to apply to send younger siblings to the same school with the additional cost of transport, or to apply to an unfamiliar Darlington School where a space is far from certain but where home to school transport will be provided by NYC free of charge. It's worth pointing out to councillors that school term dates in Darlington are also different to those in North Yorkshire resulting in for example half term holidays falling on different weeks. I'm sure you can imagine the dilemmas that this could cause families, particularly those families already struggling financially.

 

Whilst I appreciate that North Yorkshire Council is facing significant budget pressures, and that the home to school transport budget needs to be scrutinised, these policy changes do not appear to be leading to definite and quantifiable savings for the council.

 

Rather, this revised policy seems to be a case of "throwing the baby out with the bath water".

 

This policy will see NYC having to provide buses, mini buses and taxis, free of charge, to ferry as yet unknown numbers of children backwards and forwards across the county boundary, to an unknown number of Darlington and Durham schools whilst simultaneously continuing to provide free home to school transport for an unknown number of children who still qualify for it...... heading in the opposite direction.

 

Given that this scenario will be replicated across every boundary between North Yorkshire and neighbouring local authorities it's hard to envisage this farcical and wholly illogical arrangement resulting in any financial savings being made at all, let alone the hundreds of thousands of pounds touted.

 

For these reasons, and for all the others put forward so eloquently by residents living in other parts of the county, I would ask councillors to show some common sense, reconsider this policy now, and revert back to the longstanding policy of free home to school transport for children attending their nearest CATCHMENT school within the county boundary.

 

Linda Rudkin

 

In April 2024, it was revealed that an estimated 140 students could lose their access to free transport to Richmond School if the proposed transport policy is enforced. This change will profoundly affect the makeup and dynamics of the school.

 

Richmond School is well known in the community for offering an incredibly broad curriculum, particularly in the performing arts and sports, and for catering to the diverse needs of students in our area. The school is able to provide this wide-ranging curriculum largely due to its large student population, which allows smaller, niche, and less common subjects to attract enough interest to remain financially viable.

 

This, in turn, enables the school to hire specialist teachers to deliver these subjects rather than relying on staff teaching outside their areas of expertise or, worse, not offering the subjects at all.

 

Subjects are only viable at GCSE and A-Level when there are sufficiently large groups of students enrolling in them. Should the current policy go through the subjects at risk of being removed from the curriculum include a wide range of technology-related courses, including Design and Technology, Food Preparation, Engineering along with two computing courses: Computer Science and Vocational IT.  Dance and Drama are on the list too.

 

Councillors, do you know what impact this policy will have on your own schools in your wards? What does the mayor for York and North Yorkshire have to say about this policy? What school impact data do you have that you are not releasing following our requests to the Freedom of Information team? What are you trying to hide?

 

This issue is further exacerbated when considering its impact on our Sixth Form. If students are not exposed to a broad curriculum at Key Stage 4, they are unlikely to pursue these subjects in the Sixth Form. Additionally, if we lack specialist staff to deliver high-quality education in these areas, these subjects will ultimately disappear.

 

The impact on local employment is significant. Over the next five years, Richmond School anticipates reducing teaching staff by approximately 10 positions as a result of these changes. Remember, a loss of 20 students in one year is a loss of £120,000 to the school.

 

Councillors, please return this transport policy to the Executive today and ask them to rethink and to make that change. It is the only solution. And it is the only way to prove to us that at last, you are listening. Bring catchment back.

 

Brenda Price – Chair of Governors Reeth and Gunnerside Schools

 

Our role as a governing body is to ensure the very best outcomes for our pupils. We provide a safe and enriching environment and as a small school, we nurture a very strong sense of community which extends beyond the school gates. This year we have a year 6 Cohort of 13 pupils. All the pupils live in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale with most qualifying for free transport to our schools through this Policy. Their catchment secondary school is Richmond School. The impact the policy changes have to our Year 6 cohort is severe. This year those 13 pupils would be split between 5 different schools. Richmond, Wensleydale, Risedale, Teesdale and Kirkby Stephen.

 

The community that we have nurtured for the previous 7 years shattered. Many of these children live in isolated locations so school and their transport to and from school is their social hub.

 

Cost saving? Two linear routes or five routes starting at different locations and finishing at different locations. I’m not even going to go into the travel required for transport providers to get to pick up points. Currently at the end of the school day, as well as the school bus travelling back from Richmond at 3.30, we are fortunate to have the 5.30 Little White Bus, a community bus driven by volunteers, able to travel as far as Keld. This route enables many children to take part in the wide range of after school activities available at Richmond School. There are no direct buses at any time of day on any of the other routes, reducing access to those hugely enriching activities.

 

Consistently over the last six months the concerns raised have only been answered by County Council officers suggesting ‘it’s about parental choice’. In reality our parents have Hobson’s Choice – although there appears to be free choice, practically only one thing is being offered - to apply to a school they know their child will and can be transported to safely. The result, the routes demonstrated by the digital tool will never be risk assessed by council officers as no parent would ever put them down as their first choice. The council will however continue to highlight those as the only qualifying schools for free school transport.

 

DFE statutory guidelines state that: “Parents will need to easily understand how they can find out which school is their nearest suitable school for travel purposes”. The evidence is that clearly, in this case, it is not easy to understand. Will we ever know if some of the “nearest schools” would be deemed unsuitable if risk assessed, or, if by using bridleways on the digital tool and a subsequent longer route to school using roads would alter a decision on a nearest school.

 

Charlotte Fowler and Carol Livingstone

 

I’m sure you are getting fed up hearing from us and would rather we would go away, I don’t want to spend any more of my time discussing school transport either, but these are our children and our communities, and we care.  Please be inclusive for the 74% of us living in rural North Yorkshire, our children need transport to their catchment school for reasons you are already aware.

 

There are more and more stories coming in thick and fast to our group.

 

There are still lots of parents who are unaware of the school transport policy change.

 

Families that have moved address a few miles down the road from Gilling West to Fawcett can now not access free home to school transport to their existing school.

 

A 13-year-old whose family moved to North Cowton just weeks after the new policy was put in to force has just found out they now can’t get on the bus to Richmond School that stops outside his house. Instead, a taxi will be paid for to take him to Darlington. What a waste of money.

 

Families that have been through the appeals process already and have been rejected are going to appeal again, this will continue. Families are worried how they are going to be able to afford to send their children to school or be forced to send them on transport to their nearest school – measured by footpath - that is a further journey away - by road - and in some cases it will be the same school bus that they previously got on, but now will have to attend a different school. Some families have been silenced because their concerns have not been taken seriously, they have said that nothing will make a difference because, and I quote ‘we are just numbers on a piece of paper’, show these people that you do care and that you are listening. These families are not just in the Dales, there are more stories from across this constituency and indeed across the whole of North Yorkshire.

 

The longer you leave this the more damage it will do and the more time and money it will waste. Act now to avoid any more mess.

 

The policy in its current form is going to cause ripple effects across the county for years to come for no financial benefit, if you think that thousands of parents like us are going to sit quietly for two years whilst you experiment to see if there are any savings, causing disruption to our families and ruining schools, then I’m sorry, you are sorely mistaken.

 

Please help to bring catchment back.