Post-16 Transport Faces ‘Phased Withdrawal’

The provision of Post-16 transport for schools and colleges is to go before a Scrutiny Committee tomorrow.

Following a public consultation (which had 103 responses) undertaken earlier this year, the future of the service is to go before councillors – with recommendations for a ‘phased withdrawal’ of the service.

Four options were put forward in the consultation, including limiting free transport to institutions within the Wrexham County Borough (with limited exceptions), introducing set charges for transport either within or outside of the county; giving funding to Colleges to organise transport to their institutions and completely withdrawing funding for Post 16 Transport.

Feedback from the consultation included: Financial savings should be made elsewhere, the cost would mean my child/I could not carry on with further education, this would reduce where children can choose to study and ‘there should have been an option to continue with the current arrangements’.

Wrexham Council currently spends in excess of £4.3 million on school transport. £374,800 of that budget is spent transporting Post 16 learners to educational establishments both inside and outside Wrexham’s borders.

In their report to the Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee, Cllrs David A Bithell, Lead Member for the Environment and Public Protection and Michael Williams, Lead Member for Children’s Services and Education, outline the current situation and ask members to support a phased withdrawal of support for Post 16 Travel from September 2016.

In a joint statement, both Councillors agreed: “The current situation regarding post 16 educational transport is financially unsustainable and we have to do something about it that is fair and equitable to everyone concerned.”

“We are, therefore, proposing to Scrutiny in March that a phased withdrawal of discretionary Post 16 Transport takes place from September 2016.

“Any students commencing their courses from September 2016 will not be entitled to free transport. By taking this action, we will be in a better position to concentrate our resources on our statutory home-to-school transport provision for children aged 5 – 16 years and also the statutory provision of transport for children with Special Educational Needs.”

Students who currently use the transport now or from September will be able to continue to receive the transport until September 2017.

The report will go before the Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee at 2pm tomorrow. The meeting will not be web cast on the Wrexham Council website.