Issue - meetings

To receive a report on the proposed policy ahead of a Cabinet Member Decision on the final Post 16 Transport Policy Statement.

(Scott Bagshaw (Head of Fair Access) was in attendance for this item)

1.    Scott Bagshaw introduced the report which set out the Post 16 Transport Policy for 2018-19.

a)    In response to a question, Scott Bagshaw said that the Leader of Kent County Council, Mr Carter had sent a letter to the Transport Minister regarding subsidised rail travel. However, to his knowledge there had not been a favourable response. The Chairman suggested that more should be done to pursue this, and an update be received by the Committee in 6 months’ time.

b)    In response to a question relating to the post 16 transport policy consultation, Scott Bagshaw said that although the amount of feedback received was lower than expected, Kent County Council wrote to all travel card holders. He said that the consultation strategies used were reviewed frequently to ensure that Kent received as much feedback as possible from users. It relied heavily on schools and colleges for distribution and asked that they use their various contact methods through texts to engage their learners etc.

c)    In response to a question, Scott Bagshaw said that he was not aware of restricted access to some routes at certain times but agreed to investigate this and invited Members to draw any areas of concern to his attention outside of the meeting.

d)    In response a question, Scott Bagshaw said that parents would be able to pay for annual passes in two instalments for 2018/19 academic year.  Schools and Colleges had been invited to assist their low-income learners entitled to bursary funding by paying for their passes directly then seeking to recover contributions through staggered payments. He confirmed that officers were exploring the possibility of staggered payments direct to KCC, but this could not be delivered before the 2019/20 academic year.  

e)    In response to a question, Scott Bagshaw explained that administering staggered payments directly would create a burden on KCC requiring the monitoring of thousands of payments every month. The existing resources were not in place to do this and as an uncapped scheme offering unlimited usage once the card was activated, it would require this level of audit were it to be pursued.  He commented that a payment plan could potentially be put in place for the scheme, but it was unlikely that the plan would be in place before 2019 and would require operational resource to administer this.

f)     In response to a question, Scott Bagshaw said that colleagues in public transport were engaging in a ‘Wheels to Work’ scheme which enabled people living in more rural communities to be able to have discounted access to mopeds if the bus connections meant that they were unable to access schools and colleges.

g)    In response to a question, Scott Bagshaw said that anyone could apply for the pass on behalf of learners and pay for it including schools and colleges provided they had a suitable payment card.  These institutions had been encouraged to develop a mechanism during their open day  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7