Post-16 transport row continues

The ₤ 600 transport charge for post-16 students in Northumberland is days away from being axed, however it continues to trigger fallout between political opponents on the county council.On Tuesday(

May 8), the council's cabinet is due to approve the Conservatives' brand-new policy, which will supply free transport for Northumberland locals travelling to a full-time course at their 'nearest proper company', although a ₤ 50 administration cost will be payable (with some exceptions).

The present policy where students have to pay ₤ 600 was presented by the previous Labour administration for the 2014-15 academic year in the face of demonstrations, particularly from rural areas of the county.At Wednesday's

( May 2) annual meeting of the council, Coun Ian Hutchinson contacted Labour leader Grant Davey to apologise for his comments at the previous meeting that 'the charges are probably great for the rich people in the countryside who can pay for to cart their kids off to school'.

Coun Davey said he would not apologise and later in the conference, he described that this was since 'you are not protecting those on the edge of affordability' from the ₤ 50 charge (trainees from low-income backgrounds are exempt).

Conservative and council leader Peter Jackson stated: "Your option to that would be to strip the totally free post-16 transportation plan and bring back in a ₤ 600-a-year teenage tax. It's just remarkable, I think the majority of people would call that a little mad."

Coun Nick Oliver, cabinet member for corporate resources, added: "If you don't qualify (for free transport), you get the ₤ 50 back."

However Coun Davey stated: "The factor for the ₤ 600 charge from the Labour group was absolutely nothing to do with cost, it was the truth the system was being abused. It was a wide-open system where people were taking a trip as far south as Durham and as far north as Edinburgh on public transportation.

"The changeover to the ₤ 600 plan didn't stop young individuals getting to their local schools, it was about expanding the variety of Sixth Type students who travelled to their regional school.

"The ₤ 50 scheme has some limitations on its travel, however it still will be the nearby school for your course and your course could be selected anywhere, it's a very, very bad scheme and the households who don't want their kids to go to their local schools, who want to go to better schools, who I was describing in the very first place last time, will have the ability to pay that ₤ 50."

Coun Wayne Daley, cabinet member for children's services, said: "I have actually got a Labour group leader standing criticising us for imposing an administration charge of ₤ 25 a year instead of their scheme of ₤ 600. It was the biggest teenage tax this country has ever seen. You were taxing youths out of education."

Responding, Coun Davey said: "The two schemes are totally various. One plan was to help the high schools in the countryside maintain their older young individuals, the second part of it was that the real ₤ 600 plan was to aim to require people to go to their local school.

"This brand-new scheme will be precisely the like the old plan, the ₤ 50 charge is an element of it, however you will have massive costs which will be a burden on the council. In the main, the individuals who will benefit will be wealthier due to the fact that the poorer people won't have the ability to pay the ₤ 50, in the same method they could not pay the ₤ 600 so they went to their regional school."

Having the final word, Coun Oliver said he concurred that the plans were totally different-- 'one's ₤ 600 a year and the other's ₤ 25 a year'.

The brand-new post-16 transport policy was likewise gone over at today's (Thursday, May 3) conference of the council's family and kids's services committee, where Coun Daley stated: "I'm delighted that we made a commitment to remove this charge when we came into office, we have actually gone through the statutory procedure and the assessment has actually extremely supported its removal."

Alan Hodgson, a co-opted member who is not a councillor, raised concerns that the policy just seems to permit totally free transport to the nearest supplier of A-Levels, not the nearby supplier of the particular A-Levels a pupil wants to study, putting rural students at a downside to those in Newcastle, for example.But Andy Johnson,

the council's departing director of education, said that he didn't see how you might directly connect transportation policy with A-Level choices, while highlighting that there is versatility within the criteria to enable specific cases to be chosen their own merits.The elimination of the charge will cost ₤

2.2 million over the next 2 years, however this will come from the regional services spending plan, not the schools pot.Ben O'Connell, Resident Democracy Reporting Service

Source

https://www.newspostleader.co.uk/news/post-16-transport-row-continues-1-9148883

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