Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Official Report 537KB pdf

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Current Petitions

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School Bus Safety (PE1098 and PE1223)

Good morning and welcome to this meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. As always, I ask everyone to switch off their mobile phones, electronic devices and so on as they interfere with our sound system. We have received apologies from Chic Brodie.

The first item of business is an evidence-taking session on petitions PE1098 and PE1223, on school bus safety. As previously agreed, the committee will hear from the Minister for Transport and Veterans, Mr Keith Brown, and Graham Thomson, who is one of his officials. Thank you for coming along. We have also received an additional paper from Mr Ron Beaty that members might wish to refer to, and there is a possibility that Stewart Stevenson, who has an interest in these petitions, might also come along, but that will depend on when his other committee meeting finishes.

I welcome the minister to the meeting and invite him to make some brief opening remarks. After his introductory comments, I will ask some questions and then open it out to my colleagues.

Thank you, convener. I will be brief because we have discussed these petitions before. Perhaps I can provide the committee with a general update and make one or two comments about the current position.

As members will know, the Government commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory to review the guide to improving school transport, which was originally published back in December 2010. One of the findings of the review, which was published in February after we had taken a look at it, was that local authorities were keen to work together on best practice and to share knowledge. As a result, we ran two workshops for local authorities in September and October. A theme that emerged from those workshops was the desire for a consistent approach, and we are considering issuing standard guidance to local authorities on suggested minimum standards for school bus contracts and the development of a modal and behavioural code of conduct involving local authorities and, indeed, pupils and parents.

Responsibility for signage and lighting is reserved to the United Kingdom Government, which is not minded to consider the introduction of strengthened legislation in either area. However, we are aware of various school bus safety pilot schemes, especially those in the north-east of Scotland such as Aberdeenshire Council’s development of new school bus signage, and the Government is considering whether to assist Aberdeenshire Council with a full evaluation of some of its initiatives and thereafter to consider whether to develop them nationally.

With regard to seat belts, in December 2012 we commissioned a report from MVA Consultancy on the costs and challenges of changing specifications for school transport, and an Excel-based costings model allows assumptions about any new policy option that might arise to be tested and changed. The work we commissioned from MVA Consultancy was completed in mid-July, but we then took some time to understand the detail underpinning the model and, after interrogating and testing it, officials met the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Association of Transport Co-ordinating Officers to verify the costs and discuss the findings. The Government is considering its final policy position prior to approaching the UK Government with a request to devolve powers on dedicated school transport and associated measures similar to those already devolved to the Welsh Assembly. In the meantime, officials have contacted officials in Wales to discuss responsibility for ensuring that, once introduced, seat belts on dedicated school transport are worn.

The UK Government has confirmed that it is not prepared to devolve construction and use regulations that would allow us to prescribe the design of vehicles. That means that even after the relevant powers were devolved we would still not be in a position to specify that three-point seat belts be fitted.

Local authorities have made substantial progress on this issue. Perhaps the best performing authority in that respect is Highland Council, the majority of whose school transport is fitted with three-point seat belts and the rest with lap belts. However, the picture varies across the country.

Thank you very much for those comments. You have touched on some of the questions that I was going to ask but, on the issue of devolution, I understand that an order in council is needed to get these particular powers devolved. What is the timescale for that procedure?

First of all, there is an internal procedure in the Government whereby its Cabinet sub-committee discusses the proposal. We are well aware of that process and at the moment are fixing on the costs; after all, as those costs will fall on local authorities, we do not want to do something that either disadvantages local authorities disproportionately or impacts on small bus operating companies that fulfil the majority of local authority contracts. After those issues are considered, we will go to the Cabinet sub-committee and agree our approach to the Westminster Government.

How frequent are your contacts with your UK Government equivalent?

They have been periodic. The minister in question has changed quite a number of times, but the key contact was with Mike Penning, who, as you might remember, agreed in principle that these powers should be devolved. However, the situation in Scotland is slightly different from that in Wales. As I have said, we want to have the right information about costs and are looking very seriously at whether there could be a staged introduction to ensure that existing contracts do not have to be rewritten or changed. Not only is that very expensive for local authorities, it is difficult for bus operating companies to quickly retrofit buses with seat belts.

You will also be aware of Westminster Government disability legislation that requires changes on buses right through to 2019. There is quite an agenda for changing and improving bus services and we are trying to ensure that the situation is being managed as best it can in the interests of local authorities, school safety and the bus operators.

In his additional paper, which we received yesterday, Mr Beaty, whom I should welcome to the public gallery, mentions a toolkit that the Government is looking at. Has that toolkit been updated recently?

We are still working on that. Graham Thomson will be able to say more about the issue.

The toolkit is contained in the guide to school transport, which was published in 2010. We reviewed the toolkit in February and the TRL produced a report for us that led to the workshops in September and October that the minister mentioned earlier. As a result of those workshops, which have only just been held, the TRL has produced some recommendations that we are currently considering taking forward.

Good morning, minister. In your letter of 18 April, you said that workshops were being developed to share best practice on school bus safety between local authorities. Can you give us an update on how that work is going?

I think that your question was partly covered in the last answer. However, as I have said, Aberdeenshire Council has been very much to the fore on this and we have agreed to evaluate its initiatives and pilots and then issue that as best practice for other local authorities to follow.

What are the key barriers to improving school bus safety? What costs have been identified in making changes and improvements and how does the Scottish Government intend to take this work forward?

As far as costs are concerned, seat belts are the big-ticket item. We have done some work on those costs, but it has all taken a bit longer than we had hoped because, when we went out and asked local authorities, which are best placed to provide the indicative costs for these things, we did not receive a huge response. That is why we commissioned a report from MVA Consultancy.

I can give you the detail of the costs that we have identified so far, although these very much depend on when contracts are being renewed. When a local authority is about to renew its contracts for school bus transport—sometimes those contracts cover a period of three years—it is much easier to make the change at less cost then, as otherwise the costs rise significantly. For the entire fleet, it is estimated that the roll-out of three-point belts would cost between £15 million and £16 million, whereas lap belts would cost between £7 million and £7.5 million. However, those costs are pretty variable. If the roll-out was done in a staged way, the national costs would be much easier to cope with, at perhaps £200,000 per annum with an initial cost of possibly £500,000. The Welsh Government ensured that local authorities had enough notice beforehand to manage the process without incurring additional costs, and that is what we would seek to do as well.

I have one other question for Mr Brown before I bring in Mr Wilson. The petitioners make the point that the initial petition has been around since 2007. Although no one doubts the Government’s good intentions, I am picking up frustration from Mr Beaty that we only hear talk and see no specific action. Do you have a specific timetable for action? That is where the petitioner’s frustration is coming from.

On at least two occasions, the Government has made clear that we intend to take the petition forward not through legislation but through guidance, which will take longer. We have made clear a number of times our position on the proposals for signing and lighting—although the seat belt issue has been more of a changing situation—but we have said that, for various reasons that I have given to the committee before, we will not support a ban on overtaking school buses. The Government’s position has not changed and has been stated fairly explicitly a number of times, but there is further work that we can do.

It is worth saying that, in the meantime, we have seen record low levels of accident statistics. Last year, two children died, although I think that the deaths could not be attributed directly to a lack of seat belts. That number was down from three child fatalities the year before. Since 2002, there has been a huge reduction in the number of injuries. Local authorities are continually doing work on the issue, so there is no end point to those efforts. We have said that we will not legislate on the petition’s proposal for a ban on overtaking but, on signing and lighting and marking, for which local authorities have responsibility, we will seek to issue guidance to try to ensure that best practice is developed throughout the country.

Good morning, minister. In your opening statement, you said that the UK Government was not minded to transfer powers over the construction and use of buses. Did the UK Government give any reason why it was not minded to transfer those powers to the Scottish Government?

I would need to check, because the UK Government said that to us so long ago. Often with such things, either we get a straight no or we just do not hear back at all. On seat belts, the experience was different, in that we got a positive response from Mike Penning. I will need to check whether the response was given to officials in writing, but the UK Government made it very clear that it will not transfer those powers.

As you are aware, we have two petitions on school bus safety running side by side. One is on seat belts and the other is on safety signage. One suggestion is that school buses should have a lighting system that indicates when the bus is stopping to drop off or pick up passengers, so that drivers of other vehicles know not to overtake a school bus when it is picking up or dropping off children. It would be useful for the committee to get clarification about the reason why the UK Government felt that the petitioner’s proposal was not relevant.

The minister said that local authorities are responsible for letting the contracts for school transport but, when I raised the issue with a local authority in my region recently, I was told that its contracts were not let directly but were let through Strathclyde partnership for transport. Basically, I was referred to SPT as the body that regulates conditions for the fittings in school buses. I know that the Government has been in a lot of discussion with local authorities, but has it had any discussion with Strathclyde partnership for transport?

10:15

There will have been discussion with SPT because we have had discussions with all the regional transport partnerships. SPT is a bit different from the others in that it has the role that you mentioned, which it actively carries out for local authorities, whereas other regional transport partnerships have much more of a co-ordinating or overseeing role. In some ways, the issue is easier to deal with in Strathclyde because we are dealing with one body instead of having to talk to all the different councils. We have discussed the matter with the regional transport partnerships.

We have recently been trying to get a better idea of what remains to be done in each area. The level has been topped up and the number of buses that are now fitted with seat belts—I recognise that we are discussing both petitions together—is increasing all the time. However, we reckon that about 500-plus buses still require to be fitted with seat belts. We have considered getting the RTPs to do the monitoring and assessment so that we know when 100 per cent of the buses have been fitted with seat belts, and there has been discussion of that with RTPs.

You referred to £15 million for three-point seat belts and £7 million for lap seat belts. Some local authorities have set aside budgets for the fitting of seat belts. Within those figures of £15 million and £7 million, how much have local authorities set aside to assist contractors in fitting seat belts to school transport?

That information will be held by local authorities, although we can perhaps get it through our involvement with the regional transport partnerships. In the end, it would still be for the local authorities’ discretion whether they wanted to use their money for that purpose. We have had one eye on the fact that, given the recession that we have just gone through, local authority finances are stretched, and under the concordat they have discretion in the allocation of funds. We know that it is a difficult situation and think that the best and most cost-effective way to address it is in a staged way. Many small companies that provide school bus transport would find it difficult to retrofit or replace their stock quickly, and we are trying to manage that process. However, the direct answer to your question is that we do not have information on what individual local authorities may have set aside for that.

In your discussions with RTPs, it might be useful to ask whether local authorities in their areas have set aside budgets for the fitting of seat belts on school transport and whether the school transport providers are making demands on those budgets. It is easy for a local authority to say that it has set aside a couple of hundred thousand pounds for the fitting of seat belts, but if the people who provide the school transport do not know that that money is available, they might not apply for it. It would be worth finding out whether local authorities are making it known that money is available to assist providers in fitting seat belts where necessary.

I am happy to see what information we can get on that for the committee. Some local authorities may have a pot of money such as you have described, which operators can bid for, but other local authorities will simply make extra provision for a contract that will be more expensive if they specify that the buses should have three-point seat belts fitted.

We also considered whether it would be possible to assist local authorities through the green bus fund and the bus investment fund, which are used for mainstream bus services. As well as needing seat belts, the buses are often the oldest vehicles in the fleet and therefore some of the most environmentally damaging. We have been looking to develop a scheme whereby we can provide assistance for providers to change to hybrid buses and so on while, at the same time, ensuring that the new buses are fitted with seat belts. However, again, the big issue with that is finance. Instead, we have most recently allocated moneys for new buses to the community transport organisations.

Have Transport Scotland officials kept the petitioners informed of the developments that have taken place over the years?

I know for certain that Graham Thomson and others have been in touch with Mr Beaty, but I could not say the same about the other petitioner. Graham Thomson will know.

We have not had any recent contact with Lynn Merrifield. I took up my post only this year, and we have certainly not had any contact with her this year. I would have to look back in the records to check the last time that Ms Merrifield was spoken to.

Would that create any difficulties? Given that the petitioner has been proactively campaigning on the issue since 2007, would it be unreasonable to request that that happen?

No, we can take that up. The assumption has been that the issue features regularly in the newspapers, which is an indirect way of keeping people updated. However, we would have no problem with getting in touch with Ms Merrifield to make her aware of the latest developments.

That would be great. One of the most striking paragraphs in the correspondence that the committee has received reads:

“Every school child through out Scotland has the same right to be protected, one local authority area should not be safer than another. Every school child has the same right of safety.”

Given that Mr Beaty and the other petitioner have been campaigning proactively on the issue and feel passionately about it, it would be great to keep them on board so that they can follow progress.

There has been regular contact with Mr Beaty, but I am not sure that the same is true regarding Ms Merrifield. We will make sure that there is contact with Ms Merrifield as well. Graham Thomson recently had some pretty lengthy conversations with Mr Beaty, and it is worth putting on record how much we appreciate the efforts that Mr Beaty has made. There is no question but that his efforts have driven the response on the issue. It is an important issue for people across the country—for many years, my own kids went to school in a double-decker bus that did not have seat belts—and Mr Beaty has done a great job in forcing us to confront it.

Thanks, minister.

As members have no further points or questions to put to the minister, the next step is to consider options for action on the petition. The clerk has outlined several possible options. The first option is to defer consideration until the new year and seek an update from the Scottish Government on what action it has taken since the publication of the report by Transport Scotland. The second option is to take any other action that the committee considers appropriate.

I think that it would make sense to continue the petition until we have seen some action on it. We obviously want to go the extra mile for both petitioners at this point.

I suggest that we also write to the UK Government again, seeking clarification of the reasons behind the decision not to transfer the regulatory powers to the Scottish Government. If the construction and use regulations remain with the UK Government, that ties the hands of the Scottish Government in relation to fulfilling the petitioners’ wishes for school transport. It may be useful to get that further clarification as well as clarification from the minister of any deliberations that have taken place with the UK Government. We had a UK minister before the committee who assured us almost three years ago that there would be no problem with transferring the regulations to the Scottish Government, and it would be useful to get clarification of where we are on that.

Convener, we are in danger of confusing two quite separate things and a degree of common sense should apply. We cannot have vehicles being built to different construction standards in different parts of the UK. It is likely that the regulation that we are talking about has not been devolved for the simple reason that manufacturers and operators would find that an extremely difficult provision to adhere to. That is quite different from the matter that Mike Penning was happy to see devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Do you want to respond to that, John?

Not at the moment, convener.

Are members agreed that we defer consideration of the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

Jackson Carlaw makes an interesting point about the need for standardisation across the UK. Notwithstanding that, is it still worth our writing to the UK minister to get some clarification of the timescale for that transfer of powers?

Members indicated agreement.

As you have heard, minister, we are going to continue the petition. I thank you and Mr Thomson for giving evidence today. I also thank Mr Beaty for all his work on his petition. The committee appreciates all his efforts.

I suspend the meeting for two minutes to allow our witnesses to leave.

10:24 Meeting suspended.

10:26 On resuming—