Agenda, decisions and minutes

To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests, other registrable interests and any non-registrable interests relevant to any matters to be considered at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest on this occasion.

There were no declarations of interest on this occasion.

The Leader advised that he did not propose to give a statement, but to move expediently to the substantive item on the agenda.

To answer any public questions.

A period of 30 minutes will be allowed for members of the public to ask questions submitted under notice.

The Council welcomes questions from members of the public about the work of the Executive.

Subject to meeting certain timescales, questions can relate to general issues concerned with the work of the Council or an item which is on the agenda for this meeting.  For full details of the procedure for submitting questions please contact the Democratic Services Section on the numbers given below or go to www.wokingham.gov.uk/publicquestions

In accordance with the agreed procedure the Chairman invited members of the public to submit questions to the appropriate Members.

Question:

Many families, such as my own have profoundly disabled, children. The Respite of Specialist College Placements, such as Newbury allow us to remain together as a family unit. If the Executive force through this short-sighted proposal, then it will become a Pyrrhic Victory of monumental proportions. 

Many young people will no longer be able to attend their college courses and will remain at home with their family carers 24/7, the sheer pressure will lead to family breakdowns and considerable additional work for your Social Worker Teams. 

From a financial perspective the weekly Residential Care Costs for a young person with complex and profound needs ranges from £5,000 to over £8,500 per week. You may save £500,000+ on your Transport Budget, but your Adult Social Care Budget would have increased exponentially, through Social Worker and emergency placement costs, whilst your Residential Care Costs will go up by millions more! 

Please listen to the parents, who continue to care for our disabled young people at home. The only result of this policy will be to break-up families, cause heartbreak and confusion for the disabled, whilst costing the Council Millions more in Residential Placement Costs. Is this something you really want to do?

Question:

Many families, such as my own have profoundly disabled, children. The respite of specialist college placements, such as Newbury allow us to remain together as a family unit. If the Executive force through this short-sighted proposal, then it will become a Pyrrhic victory of monumental proportions. 

Many young people will no longer be able to attend their college courses and will remain at home with their family carers 24/7, the sheer pressure will lead to family breakdowns and considerable additional work for your social worker teams. 

From a financial perspective the weekly residential care costs for a young person with complex and profound needs ranges from £5,000 to over £8,500 per week. You may save £500,000+ on your transport budget, but your adult social care budget would have increased exponentially, through social worker and emergency placement costs, whilst your residential care costs will go up by millions more.

Please listen to the parents, who continue to care for our disabled young people at home. The only result of this policy will be to break-up families, cause heartbreak and confusion for the disabled, whilst costing the Council millions more in residential placement costs. Is this something you really want to do?

Answer:

We appreciate that many families will be concerned about changes to home to school transport policies. It would not make sense for us to make changes which resulted in huge additional costs elsewhere, and we wish to reassure you and other potential service users that we will assess each case on its merit, in the best interest of the young person and the Council. There is no change to our existing approach that we will continue to make an appropriate alternative arrangement to meet children and young people’s needs, where exceptional situations justify it.

Supplementary Question:

As a SEND (special educational needs & disability) parent, who chose a college place for my profoundly disabled son, I had to choose a place in Newbury and the distance wasn’t through choice, it was because there was nothing suitable in the immediate surroundings. My young son has got a condition called ‘Road blindness’ which means he just runs out into the road and it was deemed unsafe for him to attend either Reading College or Bracknell & Wokingham College. Newbury College sits in a field and was deemed to be a safe place.

In terms of young people and families with special needs who do have further placements this is not a decision which is taken lightly. They have been placed at these establishments which are further from their homes purely based on health and safety needs.

Answer:

I understand exactly what you are saying and you are not alone in your concerns on this. We will be placing children in accordance with their needs and not trying to make them go to the nearest establishment if it is not suitable. We have no intention of trying to change things where need is there. You highlighted that we do not have enough  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.1

Sarah Clarke was not in attendance but the Executive Member for Children’s Services stated that she wished for the question to be read out in any event and given a response.

Question:

Please can it be explained how the transport policy change to Independent Travel and Personal Budgets for those with SEND is going to reduce the transport budget when there is no cost analysis of the current costs for post 16 or what the cost of the proposed changes potentially will be. No information, on numbers travelling, distances currently being travelled and whether or not person budgets will cover those costs or be overpaying for that travel. What will be the potential cost of travel training and personal budgets vs current transport costs and how can the committee make an informed decision without this information?

Answer

The proposed change to the Post-16 transport offer to Independent Travel Training and a Personal Budget as the default options is part of the overall package which is aimed at ensuring we have a sustainable home to school transport service for the long term, rather than immediately reducing spend.  In particular, with this particular change, we want to do better and prepare our young people for adulthood and future employment. We aim to provide our young people with the skill and resources they need to become more independent.

Personal budgets will empower young people and their families by giving them the flexibility to make their own choices, which suit their own circumstances and individual needs and they are already in use in other local authority areas

We cannot predict what proportion of young people will have Personal Transport Budgets or Travel training, or exactly where young people will be studying or how far they will have to travel. Or indeed, how many young people will qualify for travel assistance in total in future years. This makes it nigh on impossible to provide a meaningful cost comparison between the current spend and future spend on post-16 transport, which is why we have not provided one.

But to give you some idea of what the impact may be, in the 22/23 academic year there were 62 Post-16 students receiving travel assistance from the Council. Two-thirds of Post-16 students were travelling to Post-16 education in Wokingham borough, to Reading or Bracknell & Wokingham Colleges or to Berkshire College of Agriculture. There are public transport networks or a bespoke college coach network in place to aid travel to these destinations.

Looking at what would happen if we were to pay mileage instead of having a Personal Transport Budget, in 65% of cases a mileage payment would be less, removing the flexibility for a young person to make their own choices about how they travel. Where mileage payments could be more, in most cases there are travel options which can be achieved within the personal budget. For cases where there are no suitable travel options the proposed Post-16 policy includes an appeals process, which allows cases to be reviewed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.2

Terri Walsh was unable to attend the meeting but the Executive Member stated that she wished to read out the question in any event and give a response.

Question:

Please can the "nearest suitable learning provider is the closest school or college to the home address able to offer a suitable level of Study" be clarified to make it clear that in line with the post-16 Transport & Travel to support Education statutory guidance Jan 2019, the Local Authority “29: must have regard to b) The need to ensure that young people have reasonable opportunities to choose between different establishments at which education is provided" and that a young person will be able to choose the post-16 course they wish e.g. electrician over catering as opposed to level of training course, which may mean attending a closer college, but not doing the course/qualification they want to do in order to qualify for travel assistance.

Wokingham Borough Council need to ensure a SEND young person has the same right to study a course of their choosing as their peers and they shouldn’t be forced into a course not of their choosing due to just meeting a "level" of education.

Answer:

The Council would not want to disadvantage any young person from making a reasonable choice for their future education. The Post-16 Travel Assistance policy is applicable to all post-16 students, including those young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.

Travel assistance will be considered to the nearest setting that indicates they can deliver the provision that a young person with additional needs/disabilities requires to meet their needs, as well as offering an appropriate accompanying course.

An appropriate course is one that enables the young person to meet their learning and/or employment objectives or is specifically designed to meet the student's special educational needs. For young people with SEND, preferred courses should be discussed at their annual review and their views and aspirations will be considered along with how their choice of course will meet their learning objectives. Subsequently their Educational Health Care Plan and any course named within the plan for post-16 education would be considered as a reasonable choice, for transport purposes. 

You will have noticed that I have used the word “reasonable” several times.  That is a word which appears in the legislation.  There are bound to be cases where reasonableness is disputed – for example, if the choice is between an NVQ Level 2 in Carpentry at a nearby provider and NVQ Level 2 in Joinery at one further away.  But each case will be looked at on an individual case-by-case basis, to ensure that we meet the needs of the young person as well as we can. 

Finally, there was no intention to change this aspect of the policy but it seems our rewording for clarity did not work, as it resulted in a lot of discussion at the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny meeting, and you have asked this question. To give you some reassurance, we have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.3

Question:

Given that unlike parents, the council transport planning team has the technical expertise to evaluate transport provider bids and suitability (including enhanced criminal record checks etc for safeguarding), a combined transport demand which enables price competition, the legal clout of the council/ legal team to enforce contracts and the ability to combine multiple passengers into shared journeys which is more efficient on resources and for the environment and congestion, can the travel policy specify for 16-19s the continued provision for council-organised and funded transport for vulnerable and SEND young people where they are not able to travel independently to their nearest suitable school, college or supported internship.

Answer:

The Council’s Post-16 transport policy is aimed at preparing our young people for adulthood and future employment. We aim to provide our young people with the skill and resources they need to become more independent.

Personal budgets will empower young people and their families to make their own choices, which suit their own circumstances and individual needs. Where additional support for families is needed to help identify travel options, the Council can look at the best way this support can be provided.

If a young person’s needs are such that they cannot travel independently to their nearest suitable school, college or supported internship, the Post-16 policy includes an appeals process which allows for cases to be looked at on an individual basis.

To put all that a different way, we want to do what we can to help prepare SEND young people for adulthood.  Giving options for travel to their post-16 education is part of promoting the idea of independence, which is something that will help equip them for the future. We know that this is not realistic for everyone and that some young people will still need council operated transport, and that option will still be available for those who are assessed as needing it. 

So, to answer your question directly, yes, the policy does include the possibility of council-operated transport for SEND young people where they are not able to travel independently.

Supplementary Question:

If you can’t travel independently, the need to go through another appeal is another battle for SEND families. Can you consider that you could make, centrally organised transport the outcome of an application, rather than needing to go through an appeal process.

Answer:

We wanted to make the Personal Travel Budget the default option which makes it difficult to put the other one in as a first option, but there are undoubtedly children for whom Council operated transport will be the only outcome. We will consider how that will operate. I would also like to add, once a child has got arrangements in place, that will not be changed, unless their circumstances change or they are assessed in a different way. We are not planning to move away from Council operated transport from people who have already been given it, unless there is a change in their circumstances. I hope that provides some reassurance. We  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.4

Question:

Young people with SEND have limited options for Post-16 education. One option for EHCP (Education & Health Care Plan) learners is a supported internship, a full-time educational programme with work placements.
The national guidance states in section 22 that "arrangements to support learners undertaking apprenticeships and traineeships should also be set out in the transport policy". I can see no information on this in the proposed policy. Will you please confirm that a section on this will be included and that young people with SEND will be supported to travel to such a programme?

Answer:

Section 3 of the Post-16 Transport Policy sets out the eligibility criteria which the Council will use to identify if a young person will be provided with travel assistance. If a full-time educational programme with work placements is provided by:

-       a school,

-       further education institution,

-       Council maintained or assisted institution providing higher of further education

-       Establishment funded directly by the Education Skills Funding Agency, or a

-       Learning provider delivering accredited programmes of learning, which lead to positive outcomes and are funded by the council, for example, colleges, charities, and private learning providers
 

Then travel assistance will be assessed to this provider’s location. The standard transport offer will be a personal budget. It will be for the young person to determine how to spend their personal budget to access any work placements which form part of their course.

If the young person is not enrolled on a full-time course which is provided by one of the above providers, then they will not meet the eligibility criteria for travel assistance. Section 2 of the Post-16 transport policy provides information about Travel Assistance offered by External Organisations and is applicable to all young people, including those who do not meet any other eligibility criteria.

In all cases where a young person or their family believe they have exceptional circumstances, an appeal for travel assistance may be made in accordance with Section 4 of the policy. This discretionary arrangement has not been changed.

That is all a very technical way of explaining that under the policy if the apprenticeship or traineeship is run by an educational establishment and is full-time, the young person can apply for travel assistance in the same way as for any other post-16 course of study but may have to make special arrangements to get to any work placements involved.

Question:

The proposed policy acknowledges some SEND pupils post-16 cannot get to school/college via a Personal Travel Budget (PTB), yet they must apply for PTB, wait for the end-of-term PTB decision, then appeal for Council Operated Transport instead. The proposed policy construction and timeframes inevitably will result in summer-born SEND pupils who are unable to use a PTB starting their first term without necessary transport assistance.

Please could the Executive amend this to allow parents to make the case for a need for COT that cannot be met by PTB in the initial application, instead of waiting until after PTB is awarded. This will allow pupils to have transport assistance in place at the start of term, and the council to avoid processing these applications twice.

Answer:

Travel assistance can be applied for at any time.

We would advise that as soon as a young person knows where they will be travelling to for their post-16 education that they submit their application for travel assistance.

Officers will aim to determine initial applications within 10 working days of their receipt, although this maybe slightly longer at busy times (July through to September).

Section 15 of the Post-16 policy provides details of the appeals procedure. If an appeal is required a Stage 1 Appeal will be heard within 20 working of a request being made. Should a case progress to a Stage 2 Appeal then this will be heard within 40 working days of the request. Officers will always aim to process cases as quickly as possible.  Please note that the time limits for appeals are a maximum time, not a minimum. 

Supplementary Question:

Council Operated Transport (COT) could you explain the logic behind a child reaching 16, who is assessed as not being able to travel independently, who has had COT throughout childhood. Can you explain the logic of not being able to use a personal transport budget for COT or to have COT as an option.

Answer:

We are trying to change the focus of post 16 travel for children with SEND so that it helps promote their independence, as they move into adulthood and away from Children’s Services support. When they become an adult, there is not that wraparound support in the same way. There is support, but not quite as comprehensive and we do want to promote independence where we can.

We do recognise there are children for whom that will never be appropriate. If your child is assessed as needing COT at present and it is quite clear that they will never be able to operate a personal travel budget, the likelihood is that it will just continue seamlessly.

There may need to be an appeals process, but these appeals will need to have a quick turnaround. There are more children than you might think that will be suitable for a personal travel budget or training for independent travel. The reason this is being promoted is for the young person’s benefit and not the Council.

This doesn’t  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.6

To answer any member questions.

A period of 20 minutes will be allowed for Members to ask questions submitted under notice.

Any questions not dealt with within the allotted time will be dealt with in a written reply.

In accordance with the agreed procedure the Chairman invited Members to submit questions to the appropriate Members.

There were no questions submitted on this occasion.

RESOLVED that the Executive:

1.      Noted the impacts and mitigations set out in the Equality Impact Assessment (Annex 1) 

2.      Noted the outcomes of the 28 working day public consultation (Annex 2) 

3.      Approved changes to the Home to School/College Travel Assistance policies having considered the above documentsand the recommendations and actions arising from the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny meeting of 15^th August 2023.

4.      Approved the revised Home to School/College Travel Assistance policies, taking into account the response to the recommendations and actions arising from the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny meeting of 15^th August 2023, delegating final sign off to the Director of Children’s Services in consultation with the lead member for Children’s Services

                 I.          Home to School Travel Assistance Policy for children and young people 16 years old and under, including young people with Special Educational Need and Disabilities (SEND) (Annex 3)

               II.         Transport Assistance Policy for young people resident in Wokingham post-16, including young people with SEND  (Annex4) 

5.      Approved the implementation of the new Travel Assistance Policies from the academic year commencing September 2024

6.      Agreed that the Director of Children’s Services in consultation with the Executive Member for Children’s Services has delegated authority to approve the statement every year where there are no substantial changes.

The Executive were advised that there were a number of supplementary papers relating to this item, one of which summarised the recommendations of the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee which met on 15 August 2023.

It was noted that the Executive had also received the full set of minutes from this meeting.

A set of revised recommendations had been tabled which took into account what was discussed at the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 15 August and what had emerged from the consultation exercise.

The Leader extended a welcome to the Chair of the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee who would be addressing the Executive. He invited the Executive Member for Children’s Services to introduce the report.

The Executive Member for Children's Services made the following statement:

‘What I am bringing you tonight is a complete overhaul of the Council’s Home to School Transport policies.

We have held a public consultation on our proposed changes, and the outcome of that went to the Children’s Service Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 15 August, and in a moment, we will hear from Andrew, the chair, about the committee’s views. I would like to thank all the members of the committee for their constructive and thorough engagement on the policies. I would also like to thank everyone who responded to the consultation and I note that many of the proposals we made won support.

Home to school transport can be quite an emotive issue if you have a school-age child. That is particularly true for parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities. I do understand how the idea of change can cause anxiety and concern for those parents and children. I also understand that people may not have the rosiest view of the council, and that therefore the prospect of changing the policies immediately makes them fear the worst. On top of that, we have reformulated the policy over quite a short period of time, which quite possibly has stoked the idea that the outcome is predetermined. Coming at a time when the council is having to make cuts to non-statutory services, there is also bound to be a suspicion that we are simply after saving money and not looking at the interests of the children affected.

Now, it is true that the home to school transport budget has exploded over the last few years. It is also true that we wish to bring it under control, but these changes are not being made in order to produce a saving this year. They could not do that because if we approve the new policies tonight they will not come into effect until September 2024.

There is a financial driver behind the changes of sorts, but it is not a requirement to meet a savings target. It is more about trying to ensure that we make as efficient use of the limited resources we have as possible, and about delivering the maximum we can for the most children and young people we  ...  view the full minutes text for item 42.