Frustration and anger at last Monday’s Meeting of The Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel

The Panel undertook a cross-party review of “Home to School Transport” and presented its reccomendations to the Cabinet member responsible earlier this year. At Monday’s Meeting of the Panel the Cabinet member’s response to the recommendations were received and discussed.

See this Link for full table of reccommendations and Cabinet member response: http://tiny.cc/RESPONSE733

Overall, the Cabinet’s response to the review is disappointing, and gave no real timescales as to when anything would or could be implemented. For instance the Cabinet member Cllr Chris Watts failed to accept the idea of a pilot “Green Bus” scheme, stating that ”a public transport provider cannot be favoured by the Council”.

The idea of a £10 per week bus ticket was accepted as a good idea, but the Panel was told by Cllr Watts the Schools Forum would have to discuss this first, and as with other reccomendations, no timescales for action/implementation were forthcoming. After a proposal from the Labour Member on the Panel it was decided that Cllr Watt would come back to the Panel in July, when the Panel, if still dissatisfied with the responses, could opt to refer it to the Full Council September meeting for an open debate.

It is surely not a good day for participatory local government to hear on the one hand that substantial numbers of residents like the parents who campaigned so committedly on this issue over many months, feel disillusioned and largely unheard. And on the other, the work and reccomendations of the Cross-Party Scrutiny Panel has not been valued and taken on board to any significant extent by this Conservative Administration.

For further views see the story on the Bath Chronicle website: http://tinyurl.com/qvho6w