Oxfordshire County Council insist spare seat scheme has not been withdrawn

In a statement released by the county authority last week, they insisted that the spare seat scheme was in no way being withdrawn and that the council "remains fully committed" to the scheme.

The statement comes as the row over the scheme takes another turn with the proposed motion by Cherwell councillor Eddie Reeves, which instructs the leader of Cherwell District Council "to write to the leader and deputy leader of Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) to urge them to reverse their decision (on the withdrawal of the spare seats scheme) as a matter of urgency" at this evening’s (February 27) full council meeting.

Deputy leader of the Oxfordshire County Council and cabinet member for children, education and young people's services, Cllr. Liz Brighouse, said that the idea of the county council withdrawing the scheme is "absolutely untrue" and that the scheme "has been in place for 30 years, and we see no reason why we should stop doing it."

The furore over the scheme started last month (January 9) when 235 parents of children who currently get to school via seats on the scheme received letters informing them of changes to the scheme due to come into place by the start of the next academic year.

Some parents were upset by the letters and saw the letter as an attack on parental choice over which schools they were able to send their children. Many of these parents went on to form the Save Our Bus Seats campaign and have led campaigns such as the Valentine’s Day ‘love bombing’, where children and parents sent as many emails as they could to county councillors.

In the county council’s statement, they said: "There are around 9,000 children, some with complex needs, who are eligible to use school transport in Oxfordshire.

"In any given year, there will be spare seats on buses once these 9,000 children have been catered for. The council is willing to continue to sell those seats to parents.

"Every year, the council takes an annual operational decision about the availability of spare seats based on a variety of variables including the numbers of eligible children overall and the tendering of individual services, which happens typically every three to four years. The number of spare seats that we sell fluctuates each year. In any given part of Oxfordshire the numbers of seats can go up as well as down from year to year.

"It has been well publicised that 235 parents/children would be affected in September by decisions that reduce spare seats across nine routes in Oxfordshire. There will be spare seats on those routes but fewer than in 2022/23. We continue to be in constructive dialogue and engagement with parents about ways to alleviate this situation."

Cllr. Liz Brighouse believes the district councillor’s motion is a "political attack", "fatuous", and "not necessary" because the county council has no ambition of withdrawing the scheme in its entirety.

She said: "It is a withdrawal of some seats on some buses because there aren’t any spare seats available on those buses, if there are no empty seats, then there aren’t any seats to sell. The scheme is predicated on the fact that we have responsibility to provide home to school transport for children who live more than three miles away from their school.

"After we have done that, there will be some buses with empty seats because there are not enough eligible children to sit in those seats, so we sell them as spare seats, and on some buses there will be fewer spare seats, but the scheme overall is for around 1300 seats, and the letters went out to around 200 families that may be affected across the county, but we won't know if they are affected until school preferences are released.

"The whole thing is complete nonsense, I don’t understand it, after having been through a long debate about it in county council the other week. Learning and understanding what the issues are, there wasn't any neccesity to drag Cherwell, a lower-tier authority, into the statutory obligations that Oxfordshire County Council has. They are writing to us, urging us to change our decision, but we haven’t made any decision to reverse."

In spite of the motion and campaigning by the parents, Cllr. Brighouse and the county council remain adamant that the scheme will continue, and that some years there will be more seats than other years, but that is just the natural manner of how the scheme has always worked.

In response to Cllr. Brighouse’s claims, Cherwell District Councillor Eddie Reeve said: "As to the claim that the county is not now withdrawing spare seats, Cllr. Snowdon has provided me with a copy of a letter dated January 9 that says "withdrawal" on it in very clear terms. That letter was addressed to a parent, I understand, whose child's bus service was/is due to be withdrawn in September."

Clara Dawe, from the Save Our Bus Seats campaign, also responded to the county council’s statement. She said: "This year, the reduction in spare seats is so dramatic that some routes are being cancelled. We are calling for a consultation period in order to avoid key worker and low income parents having to give up their jobs or move house just to keep their children in school. One of our members is offering his accounting skills for free and has created an innovative full cost recovery model for OCC, enabling the current number of children using the SSS to continue at no extra cost to the council. However, we have been advised that the council will not want to support a scheme, ‘that enables parent choice’ around schools."

"Ms Brighouse says, ‘We continue to be in constructive dialogue and engagement with parents about ways to alleviate this situation’ but this is not true. Amongst our 215 members representing all affected families, we know of no parent group in any consultation other than the two founding members of the Save Our Bus Seats. Parents of children in year six have not been told, so in April, hundreds of other families will suddenly find out there will be no school bus place for their child. OCC representatives visit schools to say they only have a statutory duty to provide transport to children entitled to a free place - this is not ‘consultation’.

"Cherwell District Council is right to be concerned. It represents many families whose bus service has been cancelled or whose children will not get a bus place in September. Its actions are in line with the many parish and district councils supporting the Save Our Bus Seats campaign on environmental, educational and safeguarding grounds."