Fury at school bus fee reverse
AFTER a three-hour heated council debate — the controversial charging policy for school transport has been reversed for primary school children but will REMAIN for secondary pupils.
The SNP and Independent Alliance councillors won a 10-9 vote to fully reinstate free school transport within 15 minutes of the meeting starting, but despite this the LibDems then astonished the other opposition parties by moving to charge for secondary pupils.
SNP leader Ian Mackay said the LibDems had managed to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory".
Both Independent Alliance and SNP councillors said from that point "a deal" had been done between the LibDems and the Labour/Tory administration who put the charing policy in place in February.
They later felt vindicated when the administration abandoned their call for the retention of charging for both primary and secondary and voted with the LibDems, causing Councillor Mackay to comment: "The LibDems were gleefully supported by the administration — saving them from an ignominious defeat.
"The move to charge pupils 1.80 a day has ratified the principle of charging school pupils for transport to school. No provision has been made for families who can't afford the 9 per child per week which will result in poorer children walking up to six miles a day in all weathers while the more affluent ones travel by bus."
When fury erupted after the charging policy was announced earlier in the year, it was the LibDems who made the popular decision to call for a reversal of the decision and councillor Mackay said of the change in stance: "What has been offered by the administration to change their minds on their long-standing support for free school travel is not clear but it will eventually emerge."
Unrepentent LibDem leader Vaughan Moody said retaining charging for secondary pupils had been a 'pragmatic success' as the reduction in the charge to 1.80 for a return will encourage use of the Pay as You Go scheme and allow it to settle down.
However, council leader Rhondda Geekie, although voting for the LibDem proposal, insisted overturning the primary charging policy was a wrong move and stored up more problems for the future.
She said: "No-one likes taking away services but the council faces cuts of up to 30million over the next three years and school transport cuts were — unfortunately — just the tip of the iceberg.
"Individual school transport costs 2million a year. Our original decision to cut back on transport provision was not a pleasant one but it had to be made.
"We have to protect the provision of education itself as much as we possibly can. It would be foolhardy to believe that the council's education service will remain unscathed in these times of austerity — the toughest for local government in more than four decades."
Independent Alliance councillors, like the SNP group, do not agree and blasted the LibDem support for secondary charging since it is being underwritten by the council and is costing more than sticking with the original free transport policy.
The budget saving for reducing qualifying distances for free transport was 278,000, but it is estimated it will cost in excess of 375,000 to underwrite the secondary Pay as You Go costs and the reinstatement of free primary contracts previously cancelled — costing tax payers an additional 100,000.
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Weather for Milngavie
Friday 25 May 2012
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