Agenda item

Home to School Transport Policy

To consider a report by County Councillor Aled Davies, Portfolio Holder for Finance, Countryside and Transport.

 

Minutes:

County Councillors Phyl Davies, James Evans and Rachel Powell left the meeting during consideration of this item having declared pecuniary interests.

 

Cabinet was asked to give its approval to go out to consultation on the new Home to School Transport Policy. The consultation would start on 15 June and run for 6 weeks.

 

The main areas of change were

  • Clarity about the duty to promote Welsh medium provision.
  • Removal of the practice of reimbursing 16 – 19 aged learners who travel out of county to study.
  • Removal of the practice of providing transport following a change of ordinary place of residence for learners in years 10,11,12 and 13.
  • Clarification of the appeals procedure.

 

The Chair of the Learning and Skills Scrutiny Committee, County Councillor Pete Roberts, advised that the Committee was content for the policy to go out for consultation and he expanded on the comments made by the Committee as set out in Appendix D to the report. Amongst the points the Committee had flagged up were a lack of information available to parents when deciding schools, clarity over the definition of Welsh language schools and of hazardous routes. There was some concern over the quality of the impact assessment and that the policy was being introduced too soon in 2021. Finally, he urged officers to utilise technology to consult with the public.

 

The Portfolio Holder thanked the Scrutiny Committee for their comments and advised that he would arrange for a full response to Scrutiny before going out to consultation with the policy. He explained that the Home to School Transport policy was needed to support the Education transformation programme. He advised that catchment areas were not under consideration at this time. He and officers accepted the point made about using technology to conduct the consultation. The Portfolio Holder for the Welsh Language noted that the categorisation of Welsh Language schools was being considered by the Welsh Government so it would be inappropriate for the council do so now. She also noted post 16 learners had been able to take advantage of the increased curriculum opportunities offered by e learning. Cabinet was also advised that the impact assessment was draft and would be updated to take account of any issues raised in the consultation.

 

 

RESOLVED to approve the commencement of public consultation on the revised Home to School Transport Policy (Appendix A) during June/July 2020 and that a consultation report and final draft policy is considered by Cabinet in September 2020.

 

Supporting documents: