Charging for Grammar school buses

[Sillygoose]

How come if they are proposing to turn the free seats to chargeable bringing in substantial sums they also want to hike the cost by another £100+ too? Talk about greedy and having your cake and eating it. They can't do both at once, its unfair and seems more like politics than budgeting. I thought the Conservatives supported Grammar schools?

If you read the consultation document it's fairly simple. The Council needs to save over ninety million pounds. Even with all of the changes proposed they'll get nowhere near the savings target for this area of work.

The view they're taking is that no other children whose parents choose a particular type of school receive free transport, and the cost of Vacant Seats hasn't increased for a number of years; hence the price hike.

I also wouldn't confuse what might be so called government policies with what actually happens on the ground as the two don't (and often can't) correspond. The truth is that if LAs are going to cope with the level of cuts they're faced with then they're going to have to stop certain services. In this case, it's transport in the firing line.

Compare Warwickshire parents to those in other LAs and they've done pretty well to keep the current free transport policy as long as they have.

I actually don't mind paying, to be really honest I will mind even less when there is equality and everyone pays if we all pay the same but the hikes are too big. Even if they have not gone up for a long time then that is the LA's fault not mine, its no excuse to do it now so severely.

I haven't worked it out but it must be at least an 18% rise, I certainly didn't get an 18% pay rise this year!

As Yamin151 makes the very good point, some of us are trapped in the system right at the beginning of the journey and at the mercy of these rises as I suspect it won't be a one off.

[Jason Orange]

It goes without saying though that it's actually better to have a price hike of xx percent in one go as opposed to incremental rises year on year equating to the same amount. The Council's lack of action to date actually works in your favour! From the figures they've put forward even the charge of £750 suggests a subsidy of sorts. Plenty of non 'grammar' parents would probably question why this will still exist given the savings the Council needs to make.

As far as future increases are concerned the paper suggests they'll be linked to inflation. The way things are going that could mean very small (or no) increases.