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 12 March 2025, three working days before the day of the meeting.  Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item. 

Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the agenda (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.

 

Public Participation

 

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

 

Rob Macdonald

 

It has been suggested that the scheduled review in the summer of 2026 is sufficient to address the very real concern raised by the School Transport Action Group’s petition.

 

You have said that the ‘findings of this review will be published in autumn 2026 and should a revision to the policy be required, there would be time for this to be proposed, consulted on and adopted in time for 12th September 2027 at the earliest.’

 

This tells us two important things:

 

First, is that your recommended turnaround time for conducting a valid, and therefore meaningful review is 15 months.

 

Second, is that if you started a review in Summer 2026, it could only impact children starting school in September 2028 at the earliest. 

 

Let’s be really clear on that point. The first children to benefit from a summer 2026 review would be the September 2028 intake – three and a half years from now, at the earliest.

 

What if you try to pull that forward a year and schedule the review to run this Summer – in a few short months’ time?

 

Remember what you said – you need a full year’s actual data for a review to serve any legitimate purpose, and the earliest you will get that will be July 2026. If you try a Summer ’25 review, you won’t have the data, it won’t be legitimate, it won’t convince anybody, and it won’t solve the mess and unless you’ve already decided the outcome of a Summer ’25 review, you will not have time to formulate a proper response, with a proper consultation, and jump through all the legislative hoops required to implement a policy change in time for this September.

 

The earliest date any changes would be implemented from a 2025 review, would be for pupils starting school in September 2027.

 

At best, you’ll reduce three years chaos to two.

 

So, how will things look after two or three years of ‘nearest school’ madness?

 

Parents in the Dales forced to pay to keep their children safe – for years.

 

Parents in Craven forced to pay to get their kids to their nearest grammar school – for years.

 

Parents around Selby, Whitby and in North Richmondshire forced to pay to keep their kids within county and community – for years.

 

Every council taxpayer in the county from Harrogate to Hawes, forced to pay out for duplicate buses and extra private taxis – for years.

 

It’s clear. A review simply means delay.  It prolongs the pain. It prolongs the pretence.

 

Until this policy is changed, the chaos, the costs, the injustice will roll on. Not just two years or three years but for seven more years after that while those children affected complete their schooling.

 

Let’s put a stop to this. You already know what to do. Bring back catchment now.

 

Oscar Kendall

 

I'd like to begin by wishing you all a good morning.

 

I'm sure many of you in attendance today will be wondering why I'm not in school and why I’ve been given special permission from my Mum and Head Teacher to miss out on my education this morning. My reason is, that if I do not plead the case for myself and many other children today - they shall miss out on so much more tomorrow.

 

Over the past few months there's been concern in our local community over the new Home to School Transport Policy. And that among you, our representatives here at County Hall, there has been endless division, arguing and tension.

 

Despite various councillors, MPs and even peers in the House of Lords discussing this policy, what has not been clearly heard yet are the real stories of those directly affected, especially those of a younger generation, the next generation.

 

In the next few months, my mother, younger half-brother and I, are looking to move four miles down the road from where we currently live in Whaw, to the village of Reeth. I am currently a proud Richmond School student, and I am also in the middle of my GCSE coursework, a very stressful time that requires most of my attention. From the moment my primary address changes from Whaw to Reeth, I would be reassessed on whether I'd still qualify for my free transport to Richmond School. As the new ‘nearest school only’ rule will apply, I will no longer qualify for free transport to Richmond School.

 

I would most likely have to transfer to Wensleydale School as that would be the closest school with only 2 miles in it.

 

Changing of schools during my GCSE coursework would be detrimental to not only my current education, but future career aspects. Wensleydale School does not offer all the GCSE courses I currently take at Richmond, so I would have to learn an entirely new course programme in what would be my final exam year. I also may have to settle for potentially different courses at A-Level courses than the one I am currently hoping for the opportunity for me to take the relevant GCSE courses, will have been removed.

 

Finally, I'd like to reiterate I'm not the only one who will be negatively impacted by this policy change. We live in a world where things cost more than ever, especially the cost of raising of a child. For this council to decide to put further financial burden on families, such as having to pay for the transport to their local catchment school is unwarranted and unfair.

 

On behalf of the many concerned children and adults, who are in a state of uncertainty and worry, I appeal to this committee and council to please revert this policy urgently and bring back catchment.

 

Carol Livingston

 

To those who voted for this policy change last July, I’d like you to ask yourself this simple question - did you really know what you were voting for?

 

Did you know then, that this policy takes North Yorkshire schools’ education budget and hands it to neighbouring local authorities by giving some families no choice other than to bus their children to schools out of county?

 

Were you aware that it puts 1 in 4 primary schools with under 100 students in danger of losing pupils, and that officers have admitted that some will be ‘no longer viable’?

 

Did you think about students like Oscar who are being forced to change schools in the middle of their GCSEs? Would you want this to happen to your children or grandchildren?

 

Did you realise that ten-year-olds who have studied for over a year for entrance exams, are having to turn down offers of a Grammar School place because the other school in their town is marginally closer. Because until last week, your fellow Conservative councillors from Skipton & Ripon didn’t have a clue.

 

You have forced hundreds of working Mums to consider giving up their careers to do the school run. And just let’s be clear about this, it is mostly Mums that will suffer from this decision. Annabel, Karin, Caroline, Heather – are you really ok about voting for that?

 

Did you realise this decision would leave children in tears? Such as one little girl from Scorton, in your ward Carl. Two weeks ago today, she went to school excited about the future after finding our she’d got a place with all her friends at Richmond School (her catchment). Later that day, her Mum, along with the rest of the village, heard the news. As a single working Mum, she then had to explain to her distraught daughter why she’d have to swap to Risedale, which you say is a quarter of a mile nearer.

 

Too many families with children starting school this year, urgently need your help right now. Major mistakes were made by this council when applying this policy change and parents are the ones left picking up the pieces. Did you really vote for a summer of chaos, upset and wall to wall appeals? Because that’s what’s coming your way.

 

You said at the time that your decision was based on ‘financial necessity’. Well, we now know that the £4m+ savings that you voted for in July, have since dropped by 60%. And still, no implementation costs have been factored in, despite officers admitting that scrapping catchment means more drivers, more vehicles and more routes, for seven more years. Be honest, how many of you here feel hoodwinked into voting for savings that never really existed?

 

Councillors, if you didn’t know all this when you voted, well, you do now. So, it is your duty to do something about it.

 

I am a finance director, and I understand that at times, difficult choices need to be made. But when new information comes to light that undermines the reasons behind a financial decision, the responsible thing to do is to act, without delay, to make a change that avoids further time and money being wasted.

 

I have been a Conservative voter all my life, like many others in my community. We need you to know how disappointed we are that, as a party, those we have supported in the past have not acknowledged the need to bring catchment back. That single change is the quickest way to get this mess sorted out.  The special Full Council meeting that has been called, has given you an opportunity to put this right. 

 

Please, do not blow this chance. You absolutely must act now. Because every day you wait, more unnecessary damage is being done to the people who put you where you are now.

 

On behalf of all the distraught families out there, who are anxiously watching to see what you decide to do next with our lives, we need you to know this - if you let us down this time, it will never be forgotten. We will not forgive you.

 

Linda Rukin

 

In September, my daughter and her friends will be starting their secondary school education. They are among the first wave of children to feel the impact of your decision to reduce free school transport to nearest school only. Along with all the other children in our part of the Dales, the plan was for her to get the bus to, Richmond School, the long-established catchment school for our area.

 

I am here today to share the experience that I and other parents I’ve spoken to have had as we have attempted to navigate through the stress and confusion created by the last-minute school transport policy change.

 

Specifically:

 

When I looked on your website for guidance around school admissions, the information presented about the Home to School transport seemed to say different things in different places. Some pages referred to free transport still being available to catchment schools.

 

Why wasn’t more effort made to explain the details of the policy change to parents at the Richmond School Open Evening? Surely that was a golden opportunity for someone from the North Yorkshire Council team to answer questions. At the very least, printed copies of the policy could have been available for parents to take away.

 

(I understand that Richmond School did ask the Council to come to the Open Evening (on 19th September 2024) to help explain the impact of the policy, but that invite was declined. I've also been told that the week after the event, the school received a presentation about the policy from the Council with a request to display it at their Open Evening - but by then it was too late.)

 

I note that there are regulations in place that set out what a Local Authority must do in way of sharing information about travel arrangements and policies. This includes:

·       placing it on their website;

·       making copies available without charge at County Hall and every school;

·       distribute copies without charge to parents with children in their final year of primary  school;

·       make copies available for reference at local libraries

 

(These fall within Part 1 of Schedule 3 of the School Information (England) Regulations 2008. Under the regulations, at para 8, the Local Authority was required to publish the new transport policy by 19th September 2024 (six weeks before 31st October) in formats as listed above.)

 

I think the Council has completely failed on this point. The policy may have been on the website but as the versions presented seemed to vary, how were parents supposed to know which was the right one to follow?

 

To be clear, I never saw any copies of the policy out to pick up at school, or at the open day for Richmond, nor did the Council send me a copy. I don't think it's good enough to send a letter by email via our primary school with a link in it to the website (which showed different policies at different places). To distribute a copy or make copies available without charge - surely - must mean a printed copy.

 

The impact of this for me and other families is that we were left in the dark.

 

I am concerned that some parents have made school choices they may not have made had they had full knowledge of the facts. They now face transport costs which many cannot afford. If the Council had complied with the regulations and if Richmond School had been provided with the support they asked for, more families would have been fully equipped to make an informed decision.

 

Can I therefore ask the Council:

 

Do you accept that mistakes have been made in communicating the policy change?

 

What advice can you give to parents who have been impacted by these communication failures?