Meeting documents

Statement to Cabinet - 20-Jun-2007

Simon Gane

I'd like to start by thanking you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you again about the Council's decision to charge parents from denominational schools for home to school transport if they live beyond the statutory walking distance.

I'm sure you would rather we didn't keep coming back to these meetings to bang on about denominational transport. I imagine that when you saw that we were down to speak at this meeting many of you probably thought "Oh no, here come the Catholics again". You maybe think that we should accept the Council's decision and move on. But then, as Mr Blair has found to his cost, unjust decisions will continually come back to haunt you. I know that I feel duty-bound - both as a school governor and as a parent affected by these charges - to take every opportunity to protest against the Council's unfair and discriminatory decision. And I will continue to do so until the decision is reversed.

But it's not just me. And it's not just Catholics who think that this decision is discriminatory. Although each of you, with one exception, voted against the proposed amendment at the February Council meeting to not charge for denominational transport, many councillors at that meeting voiced their concern about the Council's decision. We may have lost the vote at that meeting but it was clear that this was an issue that unsettled a lot of Council members.

But then came the May elections. The public cast its vote and some of the key figures in the debate (on both sides) lost their mandate. And now we have a new Cabinet with new executive members and so we're back again to ask you to take your new broom and sweep away this iniquitous cost-saving measure.

You may not want to. You may think that this is an insignificant issue that you'd rather ignore. But what you can't ignore is the fact that the protest against this decision is gathering pace. It is probably stronger now than it was when Overview and Scrutiny originally looked at this issue. Parents are beginning to face up to the real costs of transporting their children to the faith school of their choice. Moreover, we now have a petition protesting against this decision which contains over 1,000 signatures.

So why not save yourself all this hassle? Why not take up Cllr Sarah Bevan's suggestion, which she made at the Feb council meeting, that the incoming Executive Member for Children's Services extracts and revisits this section of the budget and devolves to schools themselves the funding and responsibility for home to school transport? You have a new mandate. I would urge you to use it to correct this injustice.