ITEM CMDT6
CABINET MEMBER FOR TRANSPORT – 8 JANUARY 2009
GRANT FUNDING FOR WEST OXFORDSHIRE VOLUNTEER LINK-UP
Report by Head of Transport
Introduction
1. This report invites the Cabinet Member for Transport to consider future funding for a transport service currently being provided in West Oxfordshire. The service in question is designed to provide pre-booked door-to-door transport for people with mobility impairments who could not easily be able to use conventional public transport.
2. The transport service in question is provided by the Volunteer Link-Up (West Oxfordshire) Community Car Scheme. This organisation is a registered charity, founded in 1983, and supervised by Managing Trustees who meet regularly at least four times per year.
3. This is a first request for grant funding to support the volunteer transport service and no formal consultation has taken place on this occasion. However, the views of Transport For All (the independent but Council-funded consultative body representing disabled and mobility-impaired people in relation to transport issues and policy) was invited to comment on the application, as was the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council’s team of transport officers.
Volunteer Link-Up (West Oxon)
4. Volunteer Link-Up (VLU) was founded in 1983 and has been based, since its formation, in Witney. Volunteer Link-Up is, first and foremost, a volunteer bureau, mainly focussed on the Witney and Carterton areas. The bureau aims to link people who have some time to spare with people in the community who need assistance.
5. It is an accredited member of the national association for volunteer bureaux – Volunteering England. In 2003 it received an outstanding achievement award for a maximum score in Quality Accreditation external assessment.
6. VLU employs three members of staff (1.4 full-time equivalent posts) who run the office, match volunteers with opportunities, etc. They are accountable to a Management Committee, made up of the Charity’s Trustees.
7. VLU aims to co-operate and collaborate with voluntary bodies and statutory authorities operating in similar charitable fields and to exchange information and advice. VLU responds to requests from Social & Health Care, the Health Authority and NHS Trusts, other statutory services, charities, local voluntary groups and individuals who need help.
8. VLU provides a range of services, including visiting and support for elderly people and people with special needs; taking elderly people shopping or on outings in their wheelchairs; practical help with garden tidying and basic decorating; befriending work with vulnerable individuals and families; regular assistance at day centres and clubs, classes for adult basic education, reading help in schools, sports and leisure activities for those with special needs and a volunteer-driven transport service for those who are unable to use public transport.
Volunteer Link-Up (West Oxon) Community Car Scheme
9. The VLU car scheme consists of volunteer drivers, who use their own cars to transport people who cannot use conventional public transport. Many of the clientele are elderly or infirm and cannot walk any great distance. The scheme currently has some 550 clients, who are served by 49 volunteer drivers, who take them shopping, to dentists and opticians, hair and beauty appointments, to visit family members in care homes and hospitals, as well as to doctor and hospital appointments.
10. Some clients are referred to the VLU scheme by Social and Community Services or by the NHS Trusts. Other clients self-refer. Where this occurs, the car scheme managers make enquiries as to the client’s mobility and/or any other impairments that they might have. Such new clients are also asked if they have family or friends who might be able to transport them. As VLU put it: “We definitely will not transport people who have other means of getting to their destination (we are not a cheap taxi service!)”
11. The VLU car scheme has grown over recent years, as evidenced by the following figures:
Year Clients Volunteer Passenger Drivers Journeys 2004/05 250 26 2,800 (average 52 per week). 2005/06 382 39 3,936 2006/07 440 40 3,200 2007/08 539 44 3,200 (average 62 per week). 12. Growth in the use of the service has been prompted by a number of factors. In 2004, changes in the provision of Non-Emergency Hospital Transport meant that VLU found itself being called upon to fulfil some of the journeys previously undertaken by that service. By 2005/06 it was reported that a total of 133 people had been referred to VLU’s car scheme from Non-Emergency Hospital Transport during that year for this reason. The demise of Long Hanborough Car Scheme had also resulted in an increased number of requests for transport from residents of the Hanboroughs, although the effect of this had been mitigated by the recruitment of a number of former Hanborough Car Scheme volunteer drivers.
13. During initial discussion with VLU it became apparent that they had not been recording information about journey purpose. In order to give guidance to the County Council as to the use to which the car scheme is put by its clients, VLU undertook a two week sampling exercise in 2008, which showed:
Week Social Shopping Medical* Long distance Beginning 26 May 52% 12% 36% 0% 2 June 32% 24% 40% 4%
*Medical includes local surgery and transport to hospital.
14. Given the short sampling period, and the range of variability shown between the two weeks surveyed, the data may be thought to be not particularly robust as yet. Any long-term funding from the County Council is likely to require more reliable data about the nature of the service being provided and the demands being made upon it. Until 2007, VLU did not gather data about the age of their clients either. This has been partly remedied since then (showing a peak demand from clients in their 70s and 80s), but this data is still far from complete, with the age of some 30% of VLU clients still unknown to them.
15. VLU has provided officers with data regarding the source of the initial referral of each client to VLU. This gave the source of referral for 476 clients, of which 171 (35.9%) had been referred by Non-Emergency Hospital Transport. A further 40 or so members had been referred by a range of health-related contact points such as the client’s doctor, Health Centre, Care Manager, Hospital, etc. In total, therefore it is likely that some 40% or so of VLU transport clients are referred to it by the health services sector and this would tend to accord with the figures quoted above related to the purpose of journeys undertaken.
16. In particular it is noted that the NHS Trusts do not currently contribute financially to the overheads of the VLU car service. Given that it is reckoned that some 40% of all journeys are made to meet medical purposes, officers feel that specific funding from the NHS Trusts ought to be sought. However, the experience of other car schemes, for example that operated by the Wantage Independent Advice Centre, is that funding from that source is difficult to achieve.
17. Oxfordshire Rural Community Council’s (ORCC) Community Transport and Accessibility Officer has been a source of assistance to other community transport groups in making the NHS Trusts aware of the impacts on the volunteer sector and working to secure NHS support. Officers feel that this is an avenue that VLU should pursue, and that the County Council should assist VLU, both by encouraging them to seek the support of ORCC, and by direct engagement between officers and the NHS Trusts on VLU’s behalf.
18. The County Council current support to VLU comprises £28,130 paid by the Social & Community Services Directorate (S&CS). This funding supports the provision of a range of services to S&CS clients, of which transport is only a small part.
19. VLU has a Service Level Agreement with S&CS to provide volunteer befrienders, gardeners and drivers to S&CS clients. The S&CS contract pays for the management and facilitation of volunteers providing transport and support services, which does include a small element of hospital/GP appointment transport. It is seen as a very small part of the service that VLU provides for S&CS.
20. The Service Level Agreement between S&CS and VLU is to: “Provide prevention services which will promote Users’/Clients’ independence, reduce their need for an extensive care package and reduce their likelihood of an admission to long term residential or nursing care or to hospital”. The purposes for which S&CS pay to support the VLU volunteer car service are therefore different from those of the E&E Directorate.
21. The support sought by VLU from E&E is intended to defray the management and co-ordination costs of providing the volunteer car scheme to those members of the public who self-refer or who are referred to them by other services or organisations.
22. In 2007/08 the VLU reported an average of 62 single journeys per week representing approximately 3,200 journeys per annum (which compares with the 3,066 journeys provided in West Oxfordshire by the Octabus dial-a-ride service in 2007/08). If the grant application were to be approved then this level of journey provision would represent a cost per passenger journey of some 78p. However, if the approximately 40% of journeys for clients referred by non-emergency hospital transport or journeys for identified medical purposes are excluded, then the cpj is re-calculated at approximately £1.30.
Feedback from Consultation
23. Officers have solicited feedback from Transport For All, Oxfordshire Rural Community Council (ORCC), and from West Oxfordshire District Council. Officers have also liaised with the Council’s Social and Community Services Directorate, which currently provides funding of just over £28,000 per annum.
24. West Oxfordshire District Council and ORCC were asked specifically to consider whether support for the VLU car scheme might be considered competitive to the Octabus Dial-a-Ride service (which is also being reviewed at this time) in that it is aimed at the same clientele and could be thought to abstract patronage from Octabus.
25. ORCC responded that “a large proportion of VLU journeys are health-related, with visits to hospitals and day centres”. These are generally excluded from Octabus. Whilst VLU and Octabus can both be used for doctor’s appointments, “the difficulty arises with timing as the patient perhaps only needs to be at the surgery for a short time. Heavy use of Octabus would result in [it] operating more like a private taxi and waiting for the appointment to end before making the return journey. It is unlikely that several people would want to visit the same surgery at approximately the same time”
26. ORCC further noted that “Octabus allows free travel to concessionary pass holders but the car scheme does not. For these reasons, ORCC felt that the two services should not be seen as competitors or mutually-exclusive in terms of funding. “I would recommend that the services continue to complement each other as at present and you continue to consider the VLU application positively”.
27. West Oxfordshire District Council agreed with the ORCC view, stating “the services are complementary in nature…rather than directly competitive” and that “a positive consideration of the VLU approach is the best option”.
28. Transport For All (TFA) considered the funding application from Volunteer Link-Up at their meeting in April 2008. No TFA members present at the meeting had previously used the Volunteer Link-Up car scheme. However the Chairman of TFA had experience of engagement with Volunteer Link-Up and endorsed their application for funding as being worthy of support. It was observed by TFA that the car scheme used private cars to provide transport and that this meant that the scheme was unlikely to be useful to wheelchair-users.
29. The S&CS Directorate was also asked for their comments. The response stated “A previous value for money report identified that the use of volunteers equates to approximately £125,000 per annum against our £28,000 contribution for management of the services. Based on the value for money that this service provides for transport services I would support their application for transport-specific funding for this service”.
30. The S&CS Directorate has offered to complete a variation to the existing contract with VLU to include any additional agreed funding and outputs. They suggested that since VLU had been achieving their existing contract targets that perhaps it might be appropriate to ask VLU to increase their output slightly in return for the additional funding.
Financial and Staff Implications
31. Volunteer Link-Up has requested a grant of £2,500 from the public transport budget. I propose that this grant request be accepted on the basis of an experiment for just one year initially and that during this period that officers continue to work directly with VLU, and ask the external transport team at ORCC to work with them, to identify and quantify the benefits which flow from the grant, prior to bringing a further report before the Cabinet Member with further recommendations for the longer term development of the VLU car service.
32. Funding was identified within the Public Transport Policy budget for enhanced support for community transport, part of which could be used to cover the required sum for VLU.
33. No staff implications have been identified.
RECOMMENDATION
34 The Cabinet Member for Transport is RECOMMENDED to:
(a) pay a grant of £2,500 to Volunteer Link-Up (West Oxfordshire) for the period 1 February 2009 to 31 January 2010 to support the administration of the community car scheme;
(b) ask Volunteer Link-Up to work with Oxfordshire Rural Community Council in pursuit of funding from the Primary Care Trust to support the costs associated with those journeys undertaken to meet hospital appointments and by clients referred to the car scheme by the Hospital Transport unit, and to ask officers to offer assistance to Volunteer Link-Up in securing this funding;
(c) ask Oxfordshire Rural Community Council to work with Volunteer Link-Up to ensure best-practice in the management of the car scheme and to improve the recording of transport journey data; and
(d) ask officers to review the continuation of this grant funding towards the end of the initial funding period, to identify and quantify the benefits that have arisen from the grant and to make recommendations for future action.
STEVE HOWELL Head of Transport
Background papers: Nil
Contact Officer: Neil Timberlake. Tel: Oxford 815585
November 2008
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