Taxi Driver Online

Not really much specific mention of the cab trade here, but I assume all this means that there will be more competition for school/social work contracts from untrained providers.


New transport contract could put vulnerable people at risk, say Brighton and Hove councillors

https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/201 ... uncillors/

A cost-cutting new transport contract could place vulnerable children from Brighton and Hove at risk, according to concerned councillors.

Potential bidders and their staff were told by Brighton and Hove City Council that they did not need prior training or experience in caring for or transporting children with special needs.

Nor were they even expected to meet the standards required of taxi and private hire drivers and which are set out in a council document known as the Blue Book.

The lower service standards are understood to be part of a drive to reduce costs when the new contractor or contractors are appointed.

The £12 million four-year contract was advertised last month but concerns among parents, carers and existing transport bosses have prompted two councillors to call for a halt to the process.

Conservative councillors Lee Wares and Mary Mears have written to the council’s executive director for families, children and learnkng, Pinaki Ghoshal, and Richard Barker, head of school organisation.

They wrote: “It has come to our attention that there is growing concern over the proposed tendering of services to transport vulnerable children (and) young people and those with special educational needs or mobility problems between home and school.

“While acknowledging the city faces a number of challenges and priorities, the safeguarding and welfare of our children must at all times remain in the forefront of our decision-making.

“Inter alia the concerns we have, two seem to be contrary to the wellbeing of the children and young people and those that are transporting them.

“Firstly, we understand that organisations and/or individuals transporting children do not need to have any prior training.

“That training extending to how to treat or move individuals, how to recognise problems, how to respond to issues or how to get them into and out of vehicles.

“Essentially, there is no requirement to have any understanding, appreciation or qualification to be responsible for, care for or transport vulnerable children or young people with special education needs or mobility problems including their physical, personality or mental challenges.

“Equally there seems no need to have an infrastructure or capability to undertake risk assessments and know how best to work with the council in managing the service.

“Secondly, Brighton and Hove City Council has via the Blue Book one of if not the highest standards in regulating transport operators and drivers.

“We understand that service providers will not have to meet those standards.

“It seems counter-intuitive, if not absurd, that the council requires such high standards to transport the general public with many being highly capable and independent yet is prepared to allow the transport of our most vulnerable by operators who will not meet those same standards.

“Respectfully, it seems a grave error in judgment that may leave the council culpable should anything untoward occur not least the impact on those in the council’s care.

“We believe that this situation is so important that notwithstanding how any previous decision got to the stage the council is at, this project should be suspended forthwith.

“It would seem that the most appropriate course of action to take right now is for the council to consider how it can continue with existing transport providers (even if that means securing contracts for another 12 months) and use that time to reconsider its options.

“Further, we believe that our duty of care to these children and young people is of such gravitas that the decision should be made via a report to full council where all councillors are able to contribute and decide the best and most appropriate way forward, whatever that might be.

“We would be grateful to receive your urgent response.”

Proposals to save sums of £30,000 or more a year have appeared in the past two council budgets, with a significant overspend having been reported in the 2015-16 financial year.

But in an equality impact assessment in this year’s budget said: “Significant savings have been achieved in previous years in transport and overall cost compares well with other councils.

“A further small saving of £39,000 is planned for 2019-20 from an overall gross budget of £2.5 million to be achieved across the full range of work undertaken within the School Organisation Team.”

A year earlier councillors were told that 354 children with special education needs, disability or mobility problems received assistance travelling to and from school.

One of the challenges for the council is that the cost of providing transport is “demand-led”.

Another challenge is that many of the rules affecting the council in this area are set nationally rather than locally.

But disquiet on this issue comes as teachers, parents and carers of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are growing more concerned about the impact of spending cuts affecting those children.

So much I could say.

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IDFIMH

The cheapest will win it. It's not about child safety anymore it's about who can do it the cheapest so the council can trouser the left overs.

That's what some would want us to believe.

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IDFIMH

Did detect a hidden agenda kind of vibe from the councillors' statement, quite apart from the slightly clunky and overblown style of writing. Not to mention the inability to use 'inter alia' and 'gravitas' properly

Cost-cutting school transport changes send budget soaring

Controversial changes to cut the cost of home to school transport have proved to be a false economy, councillors were told last night (Thursday 5 December). Instead of saving money, Brighton and Hove City Council’s home to school transport service is now £840,000 over budget.

This is despite the council employing cost-cutting consultancy Edge Public Services on a contract worth up to £499,000. The changes to the contract caused chaos at the start of term with parents of some of the most vulnerable children in Brighton and Hove criticising the safety of the new arrangements.

The council has apologised publicly for the problems with dozens of families left without suitable transport for up to two months. At Brighton Town Hall, Green councillor Hannah Clare said that she was disturbed by the large overspend and asked what caused it.

Deb Austin, the council’s acting director of families, children and learning, said that the changes, including “route optimisation”, had not gone to plan, “resulting in some quite significant difficulties for children, young people and their families”.

Most of the children affected have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and some were best taken to school by themselves rather than sharing journeys with others. She added: “There was also an issue about how children were taken from the transport into the school and that resulted in an additional cost as well.”

A report to councillors said: “The impact of operators returning routes at short notice and adjustments to arrangements due to difficulties with the implementation of new home to school transport routes has meant the estimated cost of provision has increased.

“The need to act quickly has meant additional costs and higher journey prices are being charged. Approximately 50 extra journeys are now being commissioned daily.”

Conservative councillor Mary Mears told the council’s Policy and Resources Committee that she had raised home to school transport as a corporate risk at the committee’s July meeting. She asked whether any legal steps were being taken in relation to Edge, who set up a much-criticised “dynamic purchasing system” (DPS) to save money.

Councillor Mears said: “There needs to be some clarity as to why contractors have returned routes. “Just to make a statement does not give an indication of the problem behind it.” She said that the council could terminate Edge’s contract if savings were not made for four months, adding: “They must have already failed. Are you going to terminate the contract?

“Edge offer if they fail to deliver the savings agreed, the council can claw back a percentage directly related to the percentage of under-delivery. “Therefore, as they will fail 100 per cent, based on the projected overspend, will the council be clawing back 100 per cent of the fees thus far paid to Edge?”

Ms Austin said that an independent review that was due to take place next month would look at why contractors gave back routes at the start of the school year. She also said that her department was in touch with the council’s legal team about the contract position.

Councillor John Allcock, who took over as chair of the council’s Children, Young People and Skills Committee in September, after the problems surfaced, said: “There is an independent review and a policy panel to look at a lot of details.

“What is important to look at, in terms of finance, is the home to school transport budget has been under pressure for many years. “In 2018-19 it was overspent by £210,000 and was on track to be overspent by £352,000 based on service pressures. So there was clearly a need to do something about it.”

In October the council said that it would set up a policy panel made up of six councillors who are expected to take evidence in public about the debacle. The council has yet to announce the date of the first policy panel hearing.

An external review was also promised. It was expected to start this month but has been put back until the new year.

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IDFIMH

private contractors have to pay minimum wage and PAYe and a nice slice to pay off their borrowings and dividends to shareholders why would they be cheaper than a Taxi/PH ?

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

All the work is done by licensed taxi/PH/PSV drivers.

The contractors were consultants brought in to reorganise the tender process.

And what a great job they did.

I think they assumed that all the special needs kids and young adults could all be sorted in the same way as you tender for the supply of paper and pens.

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IDFIMH

our council once brought some consultants in over traffic problems their solution was to draw a one way system onto a map in crayon and they couldn't even spell the road names right must have taken them 5 minutes fortunately it was never implemented

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

Maybe they organised the Leeds clean air zone grants while they were at it

Taxi firm dropped from council’s troubled home to school transport service

https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/202 ... t-service/

A taxi firm has been dropped from Brighton and Hove City council’s troubled home to school transport service with immediate effect.

The council has been contacting the parents and carers of dozens of children who are affected by the sudden decision to end the contract.

The firm was accused of breaking not just the terms of its contract with the council but licensing and insurance laws that are intended to protect passengers.

Yesterday morning (Thursday 16 January) information was passed to councillors and council officers alleging that a home to school transport operator was breaking taxi licencing laws, invalidating the drivers’ insurance.

Conservative councillors Mary Mears and Lee Wares alerted council chief executive Geoff Raw and asked him to investigate the allegations urgently and report any criminal offences to Sussex Police.

The two councillors also urged the council to investigate fully how dozens of routes could have been affected in this way.

The home to school transport service involves providing taxis and minibuses for hundreds of the most vulnerable children in Brighton and Hove.

Since new arrangements were brought in from the start of last autumn term, the service has been beset by problems.

Councillor Mears, a former leader of the council, said: “We received information that alleged that taxi licensing laws were being broken that might invalidate insurance for drivers and vehicles transporting vulnerable children under the council’s home to school transport contract.

“Information also alleged that drivers and escorts might not have the necessary training and criminal record checks.

“It was further alleged that these criminal offences and potential safeguarding risks might have been ongoing since September last year.

“If these allegations are true, the council must be equally culpable for allowing this to happen.

“We raised the risks back in July last year. Since then we have had numerous briefings, committee reports and advice from officers stating that checks had been carried out and were ongoing.

“It would appear that either the checks were not being done properly, not at all or false information was being provided to the council.”

Councillor Wares said: “We’ve asked the chief executive when the council became aware of these alleged offences and potential safeguarding risks – and how long did the council allowed these to continue before it acted.

“While Labour and the Greens pursue their ‘independent review’ and engineer a ‘scrutiny panel’ to deliberately avoid uncovering the truth on this whole fiasco, real safeguarding issues are potentially going on right under their noses.

“They can play down or deny the problems but doing this has already led to a budget overspend that could reach £1 million – and this is after they took on consultants on a £500,000 contract to find savings.

“At some point they are going to have to realise that their efforts to defend the indefensible are potentially putting vulnerable children at risk.”

It’s never stopped you before...

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Former taxi driver

Let's hypothesise for a second.

An operator in the Midlands gets a number of school runs contracted by a council on the South Coast.

Clearly that operator wouldn't be supplying Midland based vehicles and drivers as that would be stupid (unless you are Uber of course). So they subcontract that work to an operator in a nearly by council to said South Coast council. We will call them South Coast B.

Now South Coast B aren't the brightest sparks and although they use vehicles from South Coast B they also use vehicles from South Coast C and D.

They also subcontract further to another operator in South Coast C, who for whatever reasons then passes work to vehicles licensed in South Coast B.

And LOs from South Coast B, C and D are all as thick as pigs poo.

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IDFIMH

That reminds me of the one a few years ago where a company from one end of the country won a contract to deliver school meals on an island off of Scotland and then tried to sub contract the work back to the company's that they took the contract from.

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

Safety concerns remain over home to school transport for vulnerable children

Some of Brighton and Hove’s most vulnerable children are still being taken to school without vital safety information being shared with drivers and escorts.

Separately, Brighton and Hove City Council told a taxi firm to take some children to and from school using escorts who had not had criminal record checks.

Parents were afraid to speak up, the spiralling cost to taxpayers was being concealed and the failure to share information meant that transport chiefs were unsure whether drivers and escorts had the right training to deal with children’s medical and behavioural issues.

Wrangling over insurance cover was still also unresolved although the council said that it retained the “civil liability”.

One provider said: “Since September, we’ve been doing it on a wing and a prayer with some children.”

The issues emerged as a council panel sat in public for the first time this morning (Thursday 23 January) at the Brighthelm Centre.

The panel of six councillors heard that the hidden costs of new contracts totalled more than £140,000 a year on top of a forecast budget overspend that was recently estimated at £840,000.

Home to school transport had a £2.4 million a year budget but growing demand meant that it was overspending by up to £300,000, pushing the costs closer to £2.7 million.

The service now has an annual budget of £3 million a year but is forecast to be overspent by at least £700,000 after cost-cutting consultancy Edge Public Solutions took over running the service for the council.

Downs Park School head teacher Adrian Carver said that he had had to employ an extra member of staff to deal with the problems created by the new arrangements.

He had asked the council to help fund the new post but had not had even the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

Mr Carver also said that some pupils were still arriving late and leaving early as a result of the changes, missing out on their education.

The transport situation was the worst he had known it in all his years as a head teacher, he said, adding that the problems were predictable – and had been predicted.

The panel was told that cramming more children into bigger vehicles meant longer journeys to and from school for many children – as much as an hour and a half each way for some.

Concerns were raised about the ratio of escorts to children with learning disabilities including some with challenging behaviour.

Taxi boss Andy Cheesman said that one child had run out into the road and had almost been hit by a lorry.

Mr Cheesman said: “We were so worried that there would be incidents.”

“We found out that we had a child with epilepsy only four weeks ago who we’ve been carrying since September.”

It was important for taxi firms to have proper information about pupils’ needs, he said, so that they could ensure, for example, that the child’s driver and escort were trained to deal with an epileptic seizure.

It was also important so that they could ensure a safe space next to a child with epilepsy to minimise the risk of harm to the child and those around them in the event of a seizure.

Mr Cheesman said: “I’ve been looking after children with special educational needs all my working life. Adrian taught my brother 40 years ago

“My own son – this is why we do this – was born with autism. I’ve worked very closely with the schools and families for many years.

“This is the worst home to school service in 30 years. To still not to have the information and to be asking and asking and for people not to be answering emails is very frustrating.”

He said that the delays created by the new arrangements had meant drivers and escorts working longer hours than those contracted.

The unions wanted staff to be paid and the taxi firms, currently running on goodwill, wanted the council to cover the escalating costs.

Despite councillors voting last autumn against a proposal to bring in the new arrangements – using a “dynamic purchasing system” – education chiefs took advice from Edge and went ahead anyway.

An external inquiry has been set up to look at how this happened and what lessons need to be learnt.

Conservative councillor Lee Wares was concerned about the accuracy of briefings from the council saying that they were contradicted by evidence from those affected by the chaos.

And at the Brighthelm Centre this morning it emerged that the council had been offered free bespoke software used by City Cabs to make the transition smoother.

But instead the council had decided to pay Edge for software that was described as more suitable for delivering Amazon parcels rather than vulnerable children.

There was no update on the investigation by Mid Sussex District Council into the temporary suspension of some routes run by Haywards Heath Taxis.

But councillors were told by Green councillor Hannah Clare, who chaired the panel meeting, that this would probably be on the agenda when they met again at the end of February on a date to be agreed.

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IDFIMH