Minutes:
Anneliese Miller addressed the Committee on agenda item 8 and explained that she was a member of the Save our Bus Seats campaign group representing 235 families. Ms Miller reported that the group had undertaken a vast amount of research and that, collectively, the group understood the subject better than anyone else. She called for the implementation of the removal of the spare seats policy to to be paused and described how the Spare Seats Scheme was a source of income and not a cost. She called for the Council to work with Save our Bus Seats on a payment model and to show that the Council agreed every child in the county mattered and not just those living within the Oxford ring road.
Cllr Snowdon also addressed the Committee on agenda item 8 and praised those parents affected for their support and hard work and described them as driven and organised. He commended the report in the main whilst raising concerns about some elements of it and thanked officers for answering his questions.
Anna Antell addressed the Committee on agenda item 6. She explained that she was a grandparent carer of a child who had been excluded from mainstream education in December 2021. He had started at Huckleberry School in January 2022 and had only three hours contact per day until he was excluded from there in May 2022. Ms Antell reported that she had received only one telephone call and two emails from the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) team between December 2021 and January 2023. She explained that, whilst it had been argued that central government funding was the root cause of all problems relating to SEND, it was not central government funding that caused the appalling lack of communication.
A fourth speaker addressed the Committee on agenda item 8. She explained that her son had been diagnosed as autistic when he was four and that he had an EHCP. Through the hard work and commitment of staff at Stadhampton Primary School and at Icknield Community College, her son has progressed and had now chosen his GCSE options. Removing the Spare Seats Scheme would be terrible for her son: a change in transport would be overwhelming and a change of school would be devastated. She implored the Council not to undo all the positive changes that her son had experienced.
She asked that members read the document sent to them and that they should believe it. None of the 235 children, exclusively from rural areas, would get seats yet the Spare Seats Scheme income offset free places. As a single parent in social housing about to lose her livelihood as a result of the change, the speaker called on the Committee to stop the removal of the scheme
Cllr Bearder, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, thanked the Chair for allowing him to address the Committee on agenda item 8, although he had not been on the original list of speakers. He explained that he had great sympathy with where the Council was but recognised that the removal of the Spare Seats Scheme was posing a problem. He argued that the administration should be considering transport as a whole and explained that there must be alternatives. He suggested that the Committee might wish to consider recommending a moratorium to Cabinet so that the small number of families who would suffer would not suffer this year and to see if there were other options.
The Chair thanked all speakers for attending and for their contributions.