Hi All, I had a long chat with Steven Bridgett, who rang me last night. I post his email received last night in response to my request for his support sent on the 17th June. I thank Steven for his honesty, lengthy reply and his offer of help made yesterday. To my knowledge he is the only one of the councillors who voted for the budget which included Post 16 cuts who has spoken to our members, who lets remember, are mums and dads worried about their kids. I post my letter to him (the formatting has gone array in fb but was neatly bulleted so much easier to read than appears here), and his reply: Dear Allison, Thank you for email and for taking the time to get in touch with me. Following our telephone conversation please find my thoughts on the Post 16 Transport matter below: Ultimately I believe it is the responsibility of Central Government to fund Post 16 Transport in the same way they fund transport for children up to the age of 16 and also pay for the bus passes for retirees. More so if they intend to make Post 16 Education/Employment compulsory in the future. However it is clear central government refuse to do this not just in Northumberland but right across the country. So in some circumstances it may be appropriate for the local council to help (where it can). I have to be clear from the outset that I do not support the system carrying on the way it has done since 2008 which has more or less been allowing pupils in Northumberland to travel to any Post 16 establishment regardless of the cost. This is totally unviable for the future of Post 16 provision in Northumberland in the long term and if continued will only undermine the provision that Northumberland offers (which ultimately Northumberland County Council are responsible for). Contrary to what some in your group are purporting I have not directly voted on the Post 16 provision or its cost to parents, this was done by the Policy Board in May which I do not sit on. What I have voted on earlier in the year was the proposed 2014/15 budget for Northumberland County Council. This was the only budget submitted to the council by the administration, neither of the other political parties submitted alternative budgets like they have done in the past. As a council we have a duty to set a budget for each forthcoming financial year and if we do not, central government will step in and set it for us without any regard for the individual local aspects, issues and concerns for communities in Northumberland. As I read the minutes of the meeting on the 18th February the point I agreed and voted on was this: “Examination of a range of options on Post-16 transport which would be subject to a separate public consultation exercise. Northumberland was the only Council which funded it in this way, and the ultimate aim must be to encourage and enable students to study at their local establishment in Northumberland”. And my understanding is that this would come back to full council to be discussed in further detail as a budgetary issue. I may not have agreed with everything in the budget, but it was the only one put on the table and certain parts of it directly impact my area: Contained within the budget that I voted in favour of was £2.5million of council funds towards fixing the landslip near Rothbury. This is the single biggest issue in my community right now and I have received more than 50x the correspondence on that than I have on Post 16 Transport. I believe it was some of the Conservative members of your online transport group that suggested I had, does this mean I am free to tell the residents in my area that they voted against the landslip funds? No it doesn’t because that does not paint the full picture as they well know. One of the conditions of receiving £5million from central government for the landslip was the council committing £2.5 million of the total £7.5million. I was not about to put that money or the fixing on the main road into my communities in jeopardy. My position on the Post 16 Transport system is simple; I would be more than happy to support any motion put in front of the full council at its next meeting that sought the council to pay for Post 16 transport to a pupils nearest Post 16 establishment within their catchment area. For residents in the Whittingham area of my division this would be to the Duchess at Alnwick, for residents in the Coquetdale area of my division this would be to King Edward VI in Morpeth and for those living in Elsdon it would be to Haydon Bridge. What I would not support is a motion that seeks to continue with the status quo, which would mean Northumberland County Council continuing to fund 1,400 pupils a year to travel to Post 16 Education establishments outside of Northumberland (particularly on Tyneside) at a loss of Education funding to Northumberland of nearly £4,500 per pupil. The council paying for the transport of these pupils outside of Northumberland creates a net loss and would only serve to undermine those post 16 sixth forms and colleges in Northumberland which is the area I serve. It’s not often I see eye to eye with Cllr Castle (Alnwick) as we sit on opposite sides of the political spectrum, however he has posted some very worthwhile and thought-out messages on your group, it is a shame more are not listening to what he has to say. Even Cllr Murray (Wooler) suggested at the recent Northern Area Committee that one option could be to scrap free parking across Northumberland in favour of Post 16 transport, I am not saying I would support this without a full risk appraisal, but at the end of the day the council has a finite amount of money and to fund one item of expenditure you usually have to sacrifice another. These are the kind of things that need to be discussed. As I have said previously, please feel free to post my comments to your online group, however I will not be commenting directly, this is one of those situations where you cannot please everyone despite my thoughts on what could potentially be a reasonable compromise. And in the last week alone members of your group have suggested that I am chauffeured around the county at the taxpayers’ expense – I do not claim expenses and this is visible on the council website. And my personal favourite was the picture of me taken last year when I was raising funds for my local youth project (which is in desperate need of funds) by going in the stocks, it just so happened the leadership from county hall were visiting Rothbury on that day and had a picture taken in the hope of highlighting the difficulties in funding faced by the youth project in my village. It was disappointing to see the Post 16 transport group turn from a healthy discussion forum into what the media are so fond of calling ‘trolling’* particularly from a person who has close ties to the conservative party and seems intent on posting these ridiculous off topic points that do nothing to further the Post 16 Transport discussion or cause. In summary, I am willing to work with and discuss the issues surrounding Post 16 provision with any parent or group prepared to have a reasonable on topic discussion as I have done with yourself and I look forward to hearing from you again. With Best wishes Steven Bridgett *In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Cllr Steven Bridgett County Councillor for the Rothbury Division Mob: 07590032619 From: Allison Joynson [allison.joynson@btinternet] Sent: 17 June 2014 12:45 To: Bridgett, Steven Subject: Post 16 transport policy change - advice please Dear Mr. Bridgett, Pardon my direct approach but I was wondering whether I might ask for your support please? Can you ask for the cancelled council meeting on 2.7.14 to be reinstated, and then please can you ask for the decision to stop free transport for post 16 year olds to be debated fully? Then, if I can be so bold as to ask you to support a change in the decision please? I ask you please to consider the following: It is a basic and fundamental right for our children to receive an appropriate education and they should not be discriminated against just because they are 16-18 year olds, or live rurally; £600 charge is a levy for education that most working families in Northumberland simply cannot afford. I understand the vulnerable protection etc, but this is about those who have to pay – it is a huge proportion of the average rural income; 88% of the public who replied during the 3 month consultation process were against the charge, yet 7 out of 9 of the councillors rail roaded the decision through, totally disregarding the position of the population; The future of the rural economy in Northumberland is at risk if our children are insufficiently educated to support and drive businesses, and the longer term impact this will have on our county is dire if our future custodians are not sufficiently and appropriately educated to take well informed decisions. Over and above my 4 main concerns above, I would also like to ask you consider: Why was this decision hurried through after the 3 month consultation without a full risk assessment? One could not have been undertaken because the risk to educational outcomes, poor school attendance, and reduced student choices for further education are obvious. The children had to make their choices before knowing about this policy change. Some are changing studies to save the cost of travel because they cannot afford it – restricting their freedom of choice because Northumberland does not have sufficient in county courses to meet their needs. Others are dropping out of education altogether, looking for scarce apprenticeships instead. This has a knock on effect to the education institutions too, who have planned for their attendance. Why was this decision hurried through after the 3 months consultation without an appropriately detailed equality impact assessment? The one that was undertaken looked like a paste and copy form previous reports almost it was so vague and inaccurate. It is clearly inequitable to parents with children living in more rural areas where public transport is scarce or non existent. Why was no implementation plan between the council, the schools and transport providers developed prior to the decision being taken? It seems that plans are being looked at now – but nothing in formal, and the summer holidays loom. The public transport network is almost non–existent in large parts of rural Northumberland. There has not been any public debate via an open meeting and the publics views from the surveys were disregarded. In addition, the consultation call for public response ended at 9am on the Monday and the report was made available the next day. This appears to be a foregone conclusion in the minds of the council. The councils previous failure to provide appropriate and accessible, high quality further education opportunities is why 40% are seeking to travel out of region. Putting an educational levy of £600 will not address this. In fact it may drive more children out of county. This decision is unlikely to improve schools in the county, or attendance at our secondary schools, because if parents are forced to pay even for in county school placements, they are more likely to explore other, better performing schools, or establishments that offer the types of further education our local schools seem unable to. The council hope to save £2.4m, but have just agreed an NHS loss for £25m. They have just purchased 2 new cars a chauffeurs to run them – the cars alone costing nearly £60K. They say cancelling the meeting due to no business (astonishingly) will make an actual tangible saving of £18k – a huge sum for what is normally a monthly meeting (although 3 months will pass between the last one and the next). The financial strategy seems in disarray. We would like to better understand the other areas considered for savings to be made rather than simply targeting the hard working families in your most rural of communities with an additional financial burden that feels like a tax. Some working families who are borderline for support will stop working as it will be financially more viable for them to be on benefits and not pay this levy. This in turn sends a terrible message to our young, who we look to in the future to care for our communities. There will be an increase in road traffic, increasing pollution and congestion, because this affects kids from all over the county in rural areas. This is not supporting sustainability. The support for a decision reversal is large, and gaining momentum – with protests from all corners of the county, except the SE unsurprisingly where there is no issue for public transport, even if some of the children have to travel more than 3 miles. Some of our children will have to travel more than 20 miles and be on the bus for significantly linger than an hour. Most parents cannot afford and therefore will not pay this £600, and children will not be allowed on buses, therefore they will not be able to get to school. This is not a politically motivated letter, but you, but the rural population is very fearful of its future now. The basic right to a good education is something the UK believes passionately in – so much so that we send aid to places like Africa and India to ensure all children get that education, and get to the schools that provide it. We seem to be able to do this for some third world countries, but not our own in Northumberland. There is real concern over the future of all school transport for rural areas. Over 16s last month, church schools probably this month. Will it be all rural school transport next? Should you wish to find out any more about how people are feeling, I invite you to check out our open Facebook group, started by Carol Fawcus and Sue Patterson: https://facebook/groups/526242160820688/ I thank you for taking the time to read this email, and look forward to hearing from you. Yours Sincerely, Allison Joynson
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 06:29:34 +0000
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