Meeting documents
Cabinet
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
ITEM CA8
CABINET – 18 MARCH 2008
SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL TRAVEL STRATEGY 2008-2011
Report by Head of Transport and Head of Young People & Access to Education
Introduction
1. The Education & Inspections Act, published in December 2006, includes a number of provisions and requirements covering the journey to school. One is that local authorities are required to publish a Sustainable School Travel Strategy (SSTS).
2. More specifically, the overarching duty placed on local authorities in respect of home to school journeys requires them to:
· assess the travel and transport needs of children and young people; · audit infrastructure to support travel needs of pupils; · produce a Strategy to develop sustainable travel to and from School; · promote sustainable travel and transport to and from School; and · extend the duty to provide free transport for disadvantaged pupils.
3. The draft SSTS for Oxfordshire (see Annex 1) (download as .doc file)covers the period 2008-2011 and sets out how Oxfordshire County Council will meet these requirements. The purpose of this report is to seek approval for the draft strategy, enabling Stakeholder consultation so that a final version of the strategy can be agreed and published by summer 2008.
Background
4. The Education & Inspections Act has broad aims including tackling social exclusion; improving access to education; and raising educational attainment by reducing the impact of transport as a barrier to parents from low-income groups wishing to exercise their choice of school. The Act extends entitlements to free school transport for more disadvantaged pupils and also addresses other related school journey issues, including: health/obesity; climate change; congestion; and accidents. The Act was accompanied by the Home to School Travel and Transport Guidance, a copy of which has been placed in the Members’ Resource Centre. Attention is particularly drawn to part 1 of this guidance which covers sustainable school travel.
5. The full implications of the Act that may arise from parents exercising increased rights to choose, or those relating to the extended schools agenda are not yet clear. Annex 2 (download as .doc file) sets out updated criteria for funding home to school transport and comments on the impact of the new Act to date.
6. The draft SSTS meets the Council’s objectives of Real Choice (giving greater choice for sustainable school journeys by providing high quality alternatives to car use) and Value for Money (through ensuring that, within the Council’s statutory requirements to deliver free school transport, provision of transport to schools is focused on delivering the most journeys per pound spent). The Strategy also relates strongly to the Council’s longer term Areas of Focus, in particular Climate Change and Healthy & Thriving Communities. Finally, its importance is reflected by proposals for targets relating to ‘Children travelling to school - mode of transport usually used’ and ‘All schools in Oxfordshire to be Eco Schools’ agreed by the Public Service Board to be included in Local Area Agreement 2.
7. The draft SSTS builds on successful Council policies and practice on journeys to school, particularly in terms of encouraging greater levels of walking and cycling. In terms of bus/coach trips to school, it follows on from the Best Value Review of Funded Transport, considered by the Cabinet in March 2007. Paragraphs 15 to 18 of this report cover this in more detail.
Draft Sustainable School Travel Strategy
8. The Strategy comprises three main parts: Background, Core Strategy and an Action Plan. The content of each is summarised in the paragraphs below:
Part A - Background
9. This section sets out the context; the vision for the strategy; and intended outcomes and targets. The vision proposed for the Strategy is “To maximise the number of children travelling to school in a safe, healthy and environmentally sustainable way.”
10. The strategy aims to reduce the number of single pupil occupancy car trips and encourage more trips by sustainable modes. Where a journey can only be made by private car, the emphasis is on encouraging car sharing, safety and tackling ‘school gate’ congestion. The strategy aims to shift choice of travel towards more sustainable options as follows.
11. This section also includes facts and figures on school travel in Oxfordshire. In comparison to neighbouring shire authorities, Oxfordshire already performs well with the lowest level of car use; the second highest level of walking; and the highest level of walking and cycling combined. A chart depicting this comparison is attached at Annex 3 (download as .doc file).
12. The targets/outcomes proposed build on existing commitments and successes:
(a) reducing car trips to school (included in the current Local Transport Plan [LTP]);
(b) increased walking and cycling trips to school (contained in the Children & Young People’s Plan [CYPP]) ;
(c) past performance in these areas has been successful e.g. reducing car use to schools which have developed a Travel Plan – between 2005 and 2006, 4% of pupils at these schools switched from car to another form of travel; and
(d) the baseline and future targets for mode share for journeys to school have been reset to reflect significant changes in recording methodology required by central Government. The new targets reflect the potential for changes in travel habits at schools where plans have not yet been developed (or need to be updated) and also take into account work now taking place with the independent school sector.
13. There are three sets of outcomes and numerical, time bound targets, covering:
· the mode switch from car use to walking, cycling and coach/bus travel; · reductions in child casualties; · costs of bus-based school travel; · plus a desired outcome of contributing to reducing the County’s Carbon Footprint.
14. Target/Outcome sets 1 and 2 are relatively straightforward, representing targets and work streams being undertaken within the Environment & Economy Directorate. Target/Outcome set 3, which covers bus and coach transport, is more complex. Inevitably, there is some degree of trade-off between enabling and encouraging travel by bus to school and the cost (and value for money) to the authority of doing so. Building upon previous achievement in this area, this target is expressed as a reduction in cost per pupil transported.
15. The 2007 Best Value Review of Funded Transport proposed the future financial goal for Funded Transport should be “to hold expenditure at current levels in real terms, while reinvesting savings from service changes, efficiency improvements and better procurement & network management in services to reduce county-wide car use and carbon emissions”.
16. Decisions on re-investment require savings to be quantified. Last year, the Council reduced the costs of its Home to School transport service, resulting in an overall underspend of £50,000, including allowance for efficiency savings. These have been projected onto future budgets. Further in-year savings could be achieved by procurement via the re-tendering of bus contracts, but these are as yet unknown and future savings may be eroded by external factors such as fuel prices. In addition, in-year savings may be generated from within the Transport Service and through management actions in the Children Young People & Families Directorate: for example, SEN Transport arrangements are being reviewed with Transport staff from the Environment & Economy Directorate.
17. The costs, benefits and outcomes associated with different interventions to support and encourage bus/coach travel to school, where walking or cycling trips cannot realistically be made also need to be understood. The following areas are proposed for further investigation:
· changes to distance-based eligibility criteria and contracting revised or additional services accordingly.
· more pupils taking up spaces on existing services, where this would deliver fewer car-based trips to school at little or no cost to the Council.
· analysing school and community bus services and opportunities to make savings in revenue expenditure and any associated changes to policy.
· piloting the provision of school-based minibuses, purchased or leased using capital funding from the Council’s Better Ways to School (BWTS) programme to deliver mode shift from car to bus - without call on the Council’s revenue budgets.
18. The draft SSTS includes a full Action Plan setting out the work that would be done including putting together business cases. An overall decision on which interventions to take forward and funding implications can then be taken based on factual information.
19. Target/Outcome Set 4 identifies that the draft SSTS can contribute to carbon reduction, but at this stage needs further work before setting an appropriate target. There is a balance between reducing carbon emissions and the increase in the Council’s own contracted bus/coach operations and emissions; and to what degree this would be offset by reduced car use. The current Council target to reduce its own carbon footprint does not currently include school bus/coach services (as they are part of the journey to school, rather than the journey at school).
20. Some work has already been done to establish a ‘carbon calculator’ for School Travel Plans, that will be developed further to allow an overall carbon reduction target for school journeys to be set.
Part B – Core Strategy
21. This outlines how the Council would tackle the main components of the Strategy outlined in paragraph 2 of this report. Much of this section summarises work already undertaken by the Council in encouraging walking and cycling to school in safe way.
22. On Travel Needs Assessment, School Travel Plans are the focal point in understanding the travel patterns, needs and problems in each school. All maintained schools should have an up-to-date Travel Plan by March 2008, and the target date for all Schools in Oxfordshire has been brought forward to March 2009. Beyond this, all travel plans would be updated on a timescale related to the size and travel needs of the school; and the potential for change.
23. On Audit of Infrastructure to Support Sustainable School Travel, it is proposed to create a comprehensive, map-based picture of travel activity at each school.
24. The Strategy to Develop Infrastructure to Support Travel Needs of Pupils brings together the Council’s programmes, activities and services that encourage travel by non-car modes.
25. Finally, the Promotion of Sustainable Travel looks in more detail at the measures and actions the Council, in partnership with schools, can take to encourage travel by different modes.
Part C – Action Plan
26. This section outlines the specific objectives of the strategy and the dates by which these need to be achieved. This includes quantifying financial savings that accrue and developing sound proposals and business cases for where these could be reinvested, subject to other priorities. The Action Plan would be updated annually, informed by progress towards outcomes and targets.
Consultation, Engagement and Strategy Finalisation
27. Subject to approval, consultation on the draft Strategy will take place during April and May 2008 via a web-based questionnaire, to which Schools and other key Stakeholders will be directed. Consultation feedback will be reported to Cabinet in July 2008, together with any revisions to the Strategy, in order for a final version of the document to be approved.
Financial and Staff Implications
28. The majority of the work needed to meet the outcomes and targets identified in this report is already funded by existing programmes. Some of the potential bus/school coach interventions identified may require further funding, although the first source of funding for those that would be taken forward would be the £52,000 annual grant which supports the Act (see Annex 2). Over and above this, we anticipate funding would be from a mix of general transport and school transport budgets; this would depend on the factual information from further evaluation and the extent to which further in year-savings can be delivered.
29. There are no direct staff implications arising from this report.
RECOMMENDATION
30. The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to approve the attached draft Sustainable School Travel Strategy for consultation.
STEVE HOWELL JAN PAINE Head of Transport Head of Young People & Environment & Economy Access to EducationChildren, Young People & Families Background papers: Home to School Travel and Transport Guidance
Contact Officer: John Disley, Group Manager (Road Safety & Travel Plans) Tel: (01865) 810460 March 2008
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