Agenda item

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice to Alice Fox of Democratic and Scrutiny Services and supplied the text (contact details below) by midday on Friday 6 February, 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);

·         when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.

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 questions had been pre-submitted and agreed through the Chair from five speakers.

 

1)    Peter Vetch (Buckden Parish Council Scrutiny Committee).

 

“Statutory guidance states that local authorities should “act reasonably” and in a manner that is ‘fair and rational’.  An appeals process that meets these standards is essential to maintaining public confidence. The statutory guidance does not prescribe an exhaustive list of matters that may be considered on appeal, aside from noting a small number of specific exclusions which do not directly relate to the policy itself.

 

By contrast, the North Yorkshire policy explicitly restricts appeals to four defined grounds at the beginning of section E.  This approach means that any other exceptional or unforeseen circumstances may be dismissed solely on the basis that they fall outside the prescribed scope of the appeals process.

 

By their nature, exceptional circumstances are difficult to anticipate. Excluding them from consideration simply because they do not fall within an approved list undermines the principles of rationality, fairness, and reasonableness required by the statutory guidance.

 

My question is whether the council’s decision to explicitly limit the grounds for appeal in the policy:

 

a)             was to ensure that most exceptional circumstances could be discounted

without debate; or

b)             reflected a deliberate intention to deprive remote rural areas of access to

reasonable home to school transport options; or

c)              resulted from an inadvertent oversight that limiting the appeals process in this

way would have the unintended consequence of excluding certain remote

communities from such reasonable transport options?”

 

Daniel Harry responded as follows:

 

“The council has a longstanding process via which Home to School Transport appeals have been considered.  This process remains compliant with the legislative requirements and the provisions of the Department for Education’s statutory guidance on home to school travel.

 

In accordance with this statutory guidance, the council’s appeals process considers factors associated with its decision making about an applicant’s eligibility, and the arrangements made, for home to school transport.

 

Whilst the council’s appeals process has defined criteria upon which an appeal could be based, it does not consider that this restricts any appeal that is submitted, including those for families in rural areas.  The appeals process provides that consideration is undertaken at both Stage 1 and Stage 2 as to whether eligibility for assistance has been determined in accordance with the council’s policy.

 

It should be noted that the council’s Home to School Transport appeals process is specifically established to consider the decisions made in implementing the policy rather than the merits of the policy itself.

In answer to the specific questions:

 

1.     The council does not accept that it has limited the grounds for appeals.

2.     Therefore this does not prevent children from accessing home to school transport for which they are eligible.

3.     Furthermore, as is set out in part 4.2 of today’s report, the council’s appeals process allows for families, in all areas of the county, to appeal against a decision relating to home to school travel eligibility, including where there are exceptional circumstances that would merit a departure from the policy.”

 

A supplementary question was raised, reflecting Mr Vetch’s concerns that assurances had been given to him by an Executive Member of the council regarding incorporation of responses to the home to school transport consultation in the final policy, which had subsequently not been effected.  It was agreed that an officer response could be provided if Mr Vetch is able to give specifics of the matter outside of the meeting.

 

2)    Terence Moran

 

"Members, we recognise the Council’s financial pressures. But a budget deficit does not give permission to rely on methodology that is physically impossible.  Parents were issued co-ordinates for their child’s walking route. These are universal Ordnance Survey references; forensic data that allows anyone to verify exactly where a journey begins and ends.  When we plotted them, the failure became clear. Across 31 schools, not a single co-ordinate for an ‘end point’ was located at a school gate.  Every single one terminated inside the grounds.  Even worse, every home route began inside the physical structure of the house.

 

The council’s software cannot navigate front doors. To reach the road, it simply draws a line from that internal co-ordinate, straight through the solid masonry of the house.  This isn't just a technical quirk; it is a public deception. The officers’ report claims their online tools 'assist parents’.  Yet, the council’s own website explicitly even now tells parents that measurements start at the 'boundary of the home’.

 

You are publicly advertising a 'boundary' standard while privately applying a 'masonry' standard to deny transport.  The Education Act 1996 and the Rogers judgement state a route must be one a child ‘can walk.’ The moment a route passes through a wall, it fails that legal test.  Visualise a child in their living room, facing a brick wall, told their path to school runs directly through it.  The software ignores the laws of physics.  It commands the child to walk through it.

 

A route may exist on a computer screen, but if a child cannot physically walk it, it is a mathematical hallucination.  If you would not ask your own daughter to walk through a wall, you cannot claim such a route is available to mine.

 

The council has known of these deficiencies, yet the only response so far has been a refusal to issue maps. This is indefensible.  Measurements suitable for admissions do not translate to transport.  One decides who goes through the school gate; the other decides who can safely reach it.  To use an admissions tie-breaker as a statutory safeguard is to confuse a clerical ranking with a legal duty of care.

 

Members, were you explicitly told when setting this policy that it would contradict your own website, begin inside the masonry of private homes and fail to stop at a single school gate?”

 

Amanda Fielding responded as follows:

 

“Thank you for your questions about the methodology used by the council to determine home to school distances for the purpose of determining eligibility for assistance with home to school travel, and for your questions about the information that is provided alongside the maps, when parents make an appeal.

 

It is correct that the Eastings and Northings shown on the images provided with the map information relate to a ‘point’ at the home address and a ‘point’ at each specific school site. All properties and establishments have unique reference points, and these are included within the images sent to parents. This is because the system uses them to find the relevant addresses.

 

I can confirm that the council’s distance calculator measures from the point within each property, firstly to the path or road, and then to the nearest entrance of the nearest school.  I recognise that there may be confusion as a result of the unique property co-ordinates being displayed alongside the maps in the information for individual parents.  However, I would like to reassure you, Mr Moran, and other parents and all members of this committee that the co-ordinates used for the purpose of distance calculations do measure from the property address to the nearest entrance to the school, as defined on the council’s mapping system and that all maps that have been shared with families have showed the correct distances to these entrances. This is reflected in section 4.1.10 of today’s report.

 

To conclude, the council’s Home to School Travel Policy provides that home to school travel distances are measured from ‘the fixed point within the property to the nearest entrance point to the school […] as defined by the Council’s Geographical Information System’ and this is the approach that is being undertaken.”

 

By way of supplementary, Mr Moran highlighted examples where mapping appeared to visibly terminate inside buildings or on a cul-de-sac, thus countering the assertion that routes always terminate at the boundary gate.  Officers were invited to review the system thoroughly.  

3)    Gary Young

 

“Thank you Chair.

 

My name is Gary Young.  I’m a parent from north Richmondshire and a professionally qualified geospatial surveyor. I understand GIS mapping systems and how they could be used to produce routes based on technical and legal criteria.  Geographic Information Systems are only as accurate as the data put into them.  If incorrect start or end points are used, or if the route includes unlawful paths, the distances produced will be wrong.  Having examined the data used in my own case and those of my neighbours this is exactly what has been happening and is still happening.

 

We are going to hear a lot about co-ordinates and start and end points. But there is another issue which must be addressed, the “available walked routes” being produced, and the council’s legal obligations around them.  An “available walked route”, as used in the policy wording, is clearly defined in law as legal to access and safe to walk, accompanied as necessary.

 

The council is responsible for maintaining the definitive map of the county. This is the legal record of public rights of way to which all other mapping refers.  In our case, the route used to deny transport crossed two private farms and a private ford across the River Tees. There is no public right of way and never has been.  After a four-month ordeal and two hearings, our appeal was upheld; one of only a handful last year.

 

The critical point is this: the same unlawful route remains in the mapping system and is still being used to determine which school is deemed nearest.  This is not an isolated case. Cllr Goodrick knows firsthand that routes in her division involved crossing road barriers and four lanes of the A64. Elsewhere, there are routes already assessed as unsafe and MoD training grounds that have been wrongfully included.

 

The council’s defence is that children are not expected to walk the routes, so they don’t have to be viable or safe.  But where does it say that in the policy or within the legal definition of an available route?  It doesn’t.  Available walked routes must be just that, and available starts by checking they are public rights of way that appear on the Definitive Map.

 

These are not examples of one-off mistakes.  This is a systemic failure to check and correct, revealing a serious breach of this council's legal responsibility. Email correspondence with the Executive Member and Corporate Director demonstrates the council's own confusion, dismissing their own chosen methodology, despite being alerted to this issue. They have failed to act.

 

The council’s own policy is absolutely clear and explicitly states that all distances will be measured by the shortest available walked route.  

 

I will end with a simple question:

 

Given the council has been made aware that the routes being produced by its mapping system are not compliant with the council’s own school transport policy, why is that system still being used and why has no action been taken to correct it?

 

Thank you.”

 

In response, Amanda Fielding outlined the following:

 

“Thank you for your questions about the mapping system and walked routes, as referenced in the council’s home to school travel policy.

 

I hope my responses to Mr Moran’s questions assure you that the council’s policy is being correctly implemented through the use of the council’s mapping system.

For many years the council has used the same mapping system to calculate distances between homes and schools, this is for both admissions and for transport purposes. The maps are also used during our assessment of safe walked routes for children who live under the statutory walking distances of 2 miles (up to the age of 8) or 3 miles (for over 8s).

 

Legislation allows the council to decide how it manages its eligibility for home to school transport and the council does not use the Definitive Map as the route map for this.  The council’s system utilises data provided by Ordnance Survey.  Ordnance Survey (OS) is Great Britain’s national mapping agency and carries out the official surveying. Ordnance Survey provides accurate and up-to-date geographic data to the council, and this is uploaded annually into the system used to support decision making for annual school admissions rounds, and for related transport eligibility assessments.  This ensures that, within any individual year, admissions decisions and eligibility for home to school travel are assessed on a consistent and fair basis.

The council maintains an ongoing relationship with Ordnance Survey and regularly seeks clarification in the event that anomalies arise in the data that has been provided to it. 

 

As I have explained to Mr Vetch, the council’s appeals process allows for families to appeal against a decision relating to home to school travel eligibility, including where there are exceptional circumstances that would merit a departure from the policy.

In answer to your specific question, the council is satisfied that it uses compliant mapping data in its assessment of pupils’ eligibility for assistance with home to school travel.”

 

By way of supplementary, Mr Young highlighted that an available walk-through is defined in law so the route must be accepted to be accessible.  If the routes provided are not accessible then they are not available and as such clarity was sought on the routes that are being used.  It was also queried around updates made to the GIS system when the new policy was introduced.

 

Amanda Fielding clarified that the council uses its mapping tool to calculate distances and that the distance determines eligibility.  The council is collating information to provide a comprehensive response to all the queries around the mapping system and this will be highlighted within the forthcoming report on the Post-Implementation Review (PIR).

 

4)    Victoria Rothwell

 

“Thank you, Chair and members, my name is Victoria Rothwell.

 

I am a parent of three.  I am also a qualified accountant with 26 years’ experience in strict budget control, audit discipline, and fiduciary responsibility.  I understand financial pressure. But financial pressure never permits a public body to abandon its own rules. In my profession, we operate on the principle of true and fair. If the data underpinning a decision is wrong, the decision itself is invalid.

 

That is not opinion — it is governance.

 

The distance calculations used in my case, and across this county, are demonstrably incorrect.  Council policy is explicit: measurements must be taken from the fixed point within the home to the nearest recognised school entrance. Instead, the council is selecting arbitrary co-ordinates that are not recognised entrances. That does not measure distance, it manufactures it.  This is not a minor technical issue.  It is a systemic failure with serious consequences.

 

First: financial waste. 

By using incorrect data, the council is forcing hundreds of families into an entirely avoidable appeals process.  That drives unnecessary administrative cost, officer time and legal expenditure.  At a time of budget pressure, this is the opposite of fiscal stewardship.

 

Second: integrity and legality.

The Council is charging families money - over £1,600 per year in my case - based on calculations that have been shown to be false and have not been corrected.  In the regulated private sector, continuing to charge customers once a known calculation error exists would trigger immediate action by the Financial Conduct Authority.  It would be treated as consumer detriment.  Public bodies are not exempt from ethical standards simply because they are not FCA-regulated.

 

My personal duty was to challenge the council through the appeal process for my twins being denied school transport incorrectly, and even though I evidenced that Tadcaster Grammar was in fact my nearest suitable school, the appeal was not successful.

 

My professional duty is to challenge false data, correct it, and prevent financial harm. Yet this council has chosen to continue using known incorrect measurement points, months after they were evidenced. That is not error correction - it is institutional refusal.

 

Worse still, the council is using a tool designed solely for school admissions tie-breaking to make statutory financial charging decisions. As an accountant, I can say this plainly: you cannot run a lawful charging regime on data that was never designed, validated, or governed for that purpose. 

 

So my questions to this Scrutiny Committee are:

 

1.              Given these calculation errors are known, evidenced and have been left

uncorrected, why is this council still charging parents and refusing to

investigate?

2.              Is this council so determined to deliver savings from this policy change that

they are willing to risk wrongly charging parents for a service they are legally

entitled to?”

 

Amanda Fielding responded as follows:

 

“Thank you for your questions about the council’s mapping system and the charges to parents for paid for permits. 

 

As described earlier to Mr Moran, and as referenced in today’s report in section 4.1.10, I can confirm that home to school travel distances are calculated in accordance with the policy requirements and that the distances used for eligibility assessments are therefore correct.

 

As explained in my response to Mr Young, and as referenced in today’s report in section 4.1.1, the council has used the same compliant mapping tool for admissions and for transport over many years.

 

The DfE’s Statutory Guidance on Home to School Travel requires that local authorities can use different methodologies for the calculation of home to school travel distances where the distance is over the statutory walking distance, but that it should be made clear within the policy how the route will be measured. 

 

The council’s policy states clearly how all home to school travel distances will be measured, that is - utilising the shortest walked route.  The council does not accept, therefore, that it is utilising either a policy, or a tool, that was designed for admissions purposes to determine eligibility for assistance with home to school travel.

 

Your references to ‘statutory financial charging decisions’ do not apply in this case because the council uses the distance measurements in its assessment of eligibility. The responsibility for travel arrangements for children who are deemed not eligible under the council’s policy remains with the parent.

 

Some families choose to apply for paid for permits on council-contracted transport that have spare seats. This is a discretionary arrangement where a distance assessment is not part of the application. And, as the permits are discretionary, parents may choose to opt-in and accept the terms and conditions of the permit if they wish to access the transport.

 

In answer to your specific questions:

1.     The council does not accept that there are errors in the distance calculations.

2.     Therefore, the council does not agree that they are wrongly charging parents for home to school transport services.”

 

By way of supplementary statement, Ms Rothwell reiterated her concerns regarding system failures and that the council is adopting a high-risk strategy by not addressing this.  It was felt that the council should bring in experts to help review the mapping system.

 

5)    Jo Foster (School Transport Action Group)

 

“Thank you, Chair.

 

In October 2025, the council was alerted to the fact that across 31 schools, which is 100% of the ones we tested, the end‑point co-ordinates that you've given parents on maps did not terminate at a school entrance; and that is completely contradictory to what you say you do in your policy.

 

I think we've heard confirmed today that you've accepted that every single map that's been issued has been wrong.  So that’s been agreed today.

 

On 5th February 2026, so more than 100 days later, the Executive Member for Education, Skills and Learning, Councillor Annabel Wilkinson, in a letter to a parent, attempted to explain away the discrepancy by claiming that the co-ordinates shown on route maps that the council issued to parents were not actually the ones used to calculate distance.  It begs the question: so why were they on the maps?

 

It's also worth pointing out that in all 40 cases that we've looked at, the distances that are on those route maps match exactly to two decimal places the distances that have been quoted in appeals and also that are on the list of nearest schools.

So the map's wrong, but the distance is right.  It just seems a bit strange.  You keep telling us that the accuracy is within I think it's a thousandth of a mile.  I think it's really important to say here that actually a lot of people have been excluded from free school transport, based on metres, not on miles.  So these small differences make a huge difference: £818 to a family, or needing to get in the car and take their child to school themselves.  If the map end points and the measurement end points are different, surely the calculations on the maps would be different? I don't quite understand how you can have one without the other.

 

And I think bigger than this - this whole debate really raises very serious concerns about transparency, about policy compliance and about the reliability of the evidence provided to parents and to appeals panels, and actually to scrutiny panels.

 

It also raises serious questions: why on earth did it take so long for these explanations to emerge?  And why the maps stopped a few days after those errors were pointed out?  It's just starting to feel a bit like there’s something going on here and I really do feel that it’s time for some straight answers.

 

My questions are:

 

1.     If the endpoints shown on the route maps issued to parents are not the ones used to calculate distances, how is it possible that the distances are actually the same?

2.     What exact coordinates are being used, and how are parents supposed to know that?

3.     Where is the evidence for that, and what can you do to prove that the measurement that you're actually saying is correct is, in fact, correct?”

 

Amanda Fielding responded to the question as follows:

 

“Thank you for your questions about the council’s mapping system and the information sent to families.

 

As stated earlier, I recognise that there has been some confusion as a result of the unique property co-ordinates being displayed alongside the maps in the information sent to families.

 

In answer to your specific questions:

 

1.     As confirmed in my response to Mr Moran, it is correct that the Eastings and Northings shown on the images provided with the map information relate to a ‘point’ at the home address and a ‘point’ at each specific school site. All properties and establishments have unique reference points - and these are included within the images sent to parents.

2.     As clarified earlier, I can confirm that the council’s distance calculator measures from the point within each property, firstly to the path or road, and then to the nearest entrance of the nearest school.

3.     As explained in earlier responses, the co-ordinates used as ‘end points’ are the individual home addresses, and the nearest school entrances as held within the council’s mapping system and these are used to calculate and record the distances used for eligibility.

4.     As described earlier, the council is able to confirm that home to school travel distances are calculated in accordance with the policy, utilising the correct co-ordinates for the nearest entrances to the nearest schools as recorded within the council’s system, and that the distances reported are therefore correct.”

 

By way of supplementary statement, Ms Foster reiterated her concerns that many parents had not seen evidence that the distances calculated had been correct and urged the scrutiny committee to help parents to get to the bottom of the concerns set out.

 

In response, Amanda referred to the PIR, that this will include some analysis on the lessons learned, a section on the mapping and will report on improvements to be made to the implementation of the policy.

Resolved

 

a)    That the committee notes the questions and statements received, along with the officer responses given; and

b)    That further details of specific concerns raised by Mr Vetch in the meeting will be provided to the Head of Democratic Services and Scrutiny for response.