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ITEM EX16

EXECUTIVE – 18 MARCH 2003

TRANSPORT FOR POST-16 STUDENTS

Report by Acting Chief Education Officer

1. Schedule 19 of the Education Act 2002 introduces arrangements described as being designed to improve the planning and coherence of and publicity for transport policies for post-16 students. It requires each LEA, through a partnership with the local Learning and Skills Council, schools, colleges etc, tomust co-ordinate transport which assists students aged 16+ to attend school, college or work-related training. The LEA must draw up and publish a Policy Statement setting out:

• the transport provision which the LEA intends to make;
• the financial assistance available for the reasonable travelling expenses of students of this age;
• the provision being made by school and college governing bodies;
• any available travel concessions.

2. The Statement should be produced after consultation with schools and colleges, the Learning & Skills Council and other LEAs and should be made available locally and forwarded to the DfES for inclusion on the Connexions website. In preparing this Statement, the LEA must have regard (amongst other things) to:

• the needs of disabled students;
• the need to give students a reasonable opportunity to choose where they want to study;
• the distance students have to travel to attend educational establishments;
• the cost of transport;
• the nature of the route;
• any wish by the student’s parents for education in accordance with the religion or denomination to which they adhere.

3. From April 2003, some funding from the LSC has been allocated to individual LEAs "to enable partnerships to make real and sustainable progress in improving transport support and services" to post-16 students (DfES Circular LEA 0508/2002).
4. Oxfordshire has been allocated £177,995 for 2003/4 and further, but reduced, funding has been guaranteed for 2004/5 and 2005/6. This further funding will not necessarily be allocated according to the same formula as that used for the first year. Future allocations will take account of expenditure by local partnerships and higher allocations will be given to those partnerships which spend more on improving services and support. The Circular stipulates the following conditions:

• the funding must be used by the partnerships and not just the LEA;
• it must not replace existing sources of funding by any partner;
• it may be used to provide individual and/or group services and support;
• it may be delegated to particular members of the partnership if necessary to deliver the overall policy;
• partnerships may use up to 5% of the funding to help with the administration and staffing necessary to administer these funds. For the Oxfordshire partnership this amounts to £8,900.

5. Seats available on coaches provided for home-to-school transport can be allocated to post-16 students attending their catchment area 6^th form on payment of a charge of £33 per term. The County Council pays the remaining cost of the provision.
6. Post-16 students attending a non-catchment 6^th form can also take up available seats, at a cost of £63 per term. No other provision is made for students choosing to attend a non-catchment sixth form.
7. The County Council subsidises the cost of season tickets for students attending their catchment area 6^th form if the journey is by public transport and is 3 miles or more. After subsidy, the cost to the student is £33 per term.
8. Charges of all types are waived for those students who receive, or whose families receive, income-related benefits. The transport needs of students with Special Educational Needs are assessed individually.

Current Transport Provision to F.E. Colleges

9. The County Council is prepared to reimburse F.E. Colleges for charges in respect of seats on transport provided by the College provided that the student:

• attends the catchment area College;
• lives three miles or more from the College and
• receives an income-related benefit.

10. The County Council does not make any provision for students wishing to attend an F.E. College other than the catchment area one.
11. All of the F.E. Colleges in Oxfordshire make some transport provision for their full-time students. These vary considerably and are summarized at Annex 1.

Compliance with Schedule 19 of the Education Act 2002

12. In order to comply with the requirement that the LEA must co-ordinate transport which assists students to attend school or college, officers have made contact with all the F.E. Colleges in Oxfordshire and with the Learning and Skills Council; but this contact has been hard to establish and consultation is at an early stage.
13. It is therefore proposed to produce the Statement required by the DfES, using the information already obtained from Colleges (see Annex 1) and setting out the current provision for school students. The Statement will also contain updated information on concessions available to students from public transport providers. A similar statement was produced last year.
14. The Statement will comply with the requirements of Schedule 19 as set out in paragraph 2 above and will be discussed with both schools and colleges before it is published. The Statement will make clear the ways in which the County Council has taken account of the Schedule 19 criteria.
15. The Statement will be published by the end of the Spring Term, so that it can be made available to Year 11 pupils before they make their choices in relation to years 12 and 13. This will also meet the DfES deadline of 31 May.

Use of the Learner Support Fund

16. Talks have begun with other members of the Oxfordshire Partnership on ways of using the funding provided by the DfES in order to improve support and services for students attending both sixth-forms and F.E. colleges but these discussions are at an early stage.
17. It is proposed that we suggest to our partners that some of the 2003/4 funding should be used to pay for a study of current provision and ways of ensuring that students throughout the county receive support on a more equitable basis. For example, the amount paid by students for their travel to their catchment area school or college ranges from nothing (travel by public service bus on certain routes into Abingdon and Witney Colleges) to £60 a term (travel by College bus into these same two Colleges).
18. In order to comply with the Schedule 19 that we have regard to "the need to give students a reasonable opportunity to choose where they want to study" and "the cost of transport", it is further suggested that we propose setting up a discretionary fund to which individual students could apply for assistance with travel, either to school or college, where no support is provided at all at present. This could include, for example, students in receipt of income-related benefits who travel by public service bus but live less than three miles from school/college. It could also provide some support to students who want to attend a non-catchment school or college. Strict criteria would need to be set for the provision of such funding and it will be necessary to discuss it with all partners, including Headteachers of Secondary Schools.

RECOMMENDATIONS

19. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

1. authorize the Director for Learning & Culture to draw up a Statement of Transport Provision for Post-16 students on the basis outlined in this report, using information from Colleges and re-stating current provision by the LEA;
2. instruct officers to continue to discuss with members of the Oxfordshire Partnership the appropriate use of the Learner Support Funds provided by the Learning & Skills Council and to report the outcome to a future meeting of the Executive for decision.

ROY SMITH
Acting Chief Education Officer

Background Papers: Education Act 2002, Schedule 19
Transport Arrangements for 2003/4 (DfES circular LEA 0508/2002)

Contact Officer: Sue Tanner, Senior Education Officer Tel: 01865 815472

March 2003

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