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13
Feb
Incorrect information used to make school transport decisions – but councillors vote against taking action
Councillors have voted not to take action despite being told that parents have been denied free school transport to their child’s catchment school due to incorrect information in North Yorkshire Council systems.
Senior officers have admitted that measurements used to calculate eligibility for home-to-school transport have in some cases been based on outdated key information on the location of school gates.
The authority has written to all schools in North Yorkshire asking for updated information, but officers say systems will not be corrected with the new information until September.
Members of the council’s children and families overview and scrutiny committee on Wednesday (February 11) heard criticism of the council’s implementation of the controversial policy change, which means free transport is only offered to a child’s nearest school.
Richmond councillor Stuart Parsons told the meeting that incorrect information on entrances at Richmond School meant families from Scorton had been told their nearest school was Risedale, when it was actually Richmond.
The meeting heard that a similar issue had been found at Tadcaster Grammar School.
Cllr Parsons said:
How North Yorkshire [Council] can establish a policy without knowing where the exits are, and all of their facilities, is quite blindingly stupid.
And how they can then judge people’s appeals or anything else without knowing where these endpoints really are, as opposed to where they’d like them to be, is beyond me as well.
The councillor said parents should get an apology and their money back, if they had paid for transport that they should be getting for free.
The meeting heard that incorrect information about how distances were calculated remained on the council website and that members had also been given wrong information.
Maps that had been given to parents who appealed after being refused free transport had coordinates that were not used in the calculation, councillors were told.
'It's a shambles and, frankly, embarrassing'
Ouseburn councillor Arnold Warneken told the meeting the council had given his constituent three different explanations on how it calculated that their child was not eligible for free transport.
He added:
Is it any wonder that parents don’t have any confidence in us, and find it confusing when we, the authors of the policy, cannot get it right?
It’s a shambles and frankly embarrassing.
The meeting also heard criticism from parents and campaigners over the council’s systems for determining which school was nearest.
One speaker, Terence Moran, said a “public deception” had taken place, while Appleton Roebuck parent Victoria Rothwell said she was having to pay more than £1,600 per year for school transport based on calculations that have been shown to be false.
'I recognise that there may be confusion'
Amanda Fielding, the council’s assistant director for education and inclusion, admitted some of the information on the policy change had been “confusing” and that lessons would be learnt.
But the officer said measurements made by the mapping system, which the authority had used for a number of years, were accurate and in line with the policy.
She said the council did not accept that there were errors in the distance calculations, adding:
I can confirm that the council’s distance calculator measures from a point within each property firstly to the path or road and then to the entrance of the nearest school.
I recognise that there may be confusion as a result of the unique property coordinates being displayed alongside the maps with the information to parents.
The officer said she wanted to reassure parents and councillors that “the coordinates used for the purposes of distance calculation do, in all cases, measure from the property address to the nearest entrance to the school as defined on the council’s mapping system and that all maps shared with families have showed the correct distances to these entrances”.
On the location of school gates, the meeting was told that the authority relied on schools providing the correct information.
Members of the committee voted against taking immediate action to look at the implementation of the policy and to wait for the outcome of a policy review, which is currently underway.
Members also voted against the authority conducting a social impact study into the consequences of the policy change on North Yorkshire families.
Speaking after the meeting, a spokesperson for the School Transport Action Group, which was formed to fight the policy change, said:
We are shocked that, despite clear contradictions and wall-to-wall confusion among councillors – the majority of the scrutiny committee voted to do absolutely nothing to protect children today.
Waiting for the post implementation review means families being wrongly charged today have no respite and another two years worth of children, that’s 22,000 applicants, will be unfairly treated by a system that officers have admitted contains errors.
The policy was changed by the council with the aim of reducing its annual bill for school transport of more than £50m.
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