ICI/S4/13/9/A INFRASTRUCTURE AND CAPITAL INVESTMENT COMMITTEE AGENDA 9th Meeting, 2013 (Session 4) Wednesday 17 April 2013 The Committee will meet at 10.00 am in Committee Room 6. 1. Decision on taking business in private: The Committee will decide whether to take item 5 in private. 2. Community transport: The Committee will take evidence from— John MacDonald, Director for Scotland, Community Transport Association. 3. Public petitions: The Committee will consider petition PE1236 by Jill Fotheringham, on A90-A937 safety improvements. 4. Subordinate legislation: The Committee will consider the following negative instruments— Tenant Information Packs (Assured Tenancies) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2013 SSI 2013/90; The Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (Fife Council ) Designation Order 2013 SSI 2013/93; The Parking Attendants (Wearing of Uniforms) (Fife Council Parking Area) Regulations 2013 SSI 2013/94; The Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (Fife Council) Regulations 2013 SSI 2013/95. 5. Budget Strategy Phase: The Committee will consider a letter from the Finance Committee in relation to the Budget Strategy Phase.
Transcript
ICI/S4/13/9/A
INFRASTRUCTURE AND CAPITAL INVESTMENT COMMITTEE
AGENDA
9th Meeting, 2013 (Session 4)
Wednesday 17 April 2013
The Committee will meet at 10.00 am in Committee Room 6. 1. Decision on taking business in private: The Committee will decide whether to
take item 5 in private. 2. Community transport: The Committee will take evidence from—
John MacDonald, Director for Scotland, Community Transport Association.
3. Public petitions: The Committee will consider petition PE1236 by JillFotheringham, on A90-A937 safety improvements.
4. Subordinate legislation: The Committee will consider the following negative
instruments—
Tenant Information Packs (Assured Tenancies) (Scotland) AmendmentOrder 2013 SSI 2013/90; The Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (FifeCouncil ) Designation Order 2013 SSI 2013/93; The Parking Attendants (Wearing of Uniforms) (Fife Council Parking Area)Regulations 2013 SSI 2013/94; The Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (Fife Council) Regulations 2013SSI 2013/95.
5. Budget Strategy Phase: The Committee will consider a letter from the Finance
Committee in relation to the Budget Strategy Phase.
ICI/S4/13/9/A
Steve FarrellClerk to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee
9th Meeting, 2013 (Session 4), Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Community transport inquiry Introduction
1. At its meeting on 21 November 2012, the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee considered its future work programme and agreed to undertake an inquiry into community transport early in 2013. 2. The Committee agreed its approach to this inquiry on 20 February 2013. 3. The Committee agreed to focus on building on the work already undertaken by other organisations and that areas to be considered by the Committee would be directly influenced and shaped by the views of key stakeholders and community groups.
Evidence Call for written views 4. The call for views on the inquiry was issued on 11 March 2013 and will run until 19 April. It was sent to organisations with an interest in community transport issues, and was also covered by national media. 5. Fourteen submissions from individuals and organisations have already been received, and these are reproduced at Annexe A. All submissions will be published on the Committee website, and are available at the following link:
Fact-finding visits 6. The Committee will undertake a number of informal fact finding visits in advance of hearing from witnesses in order to understand fully the challenges local communities face. These will be carried out during weeks commencing 15 April and 22 April. Notes of these meetings will be published on the Committee website at the following link:
Next Steps 7. The Committee will take oral evidence from stakeholder groups throughout the second half of April and all of May. 8. This first oral evidence session will be to hear from the Community Transport Association on 17 April 2013, and will set the scene for the inquiry.
Submissions received from: Badenoch and Strathspay Community Transport Company Balfron Community Transport Buckie Accessible Bus Scheme Creich, Croik and Ardgay Day Care Association. ECAS Interloch Transport Killearn Community Council Vivian Laycock North Argyll Volunteer Car Scheme Steve Renwick (Individual) Skye and Lochalsh Council for Voluntary Organisations South West Community Transport Tagsa Uibhist The Silver Circle
BADENOCH AND STRATHSPAY COMMUNITY TRANSPORT COMPANY
WRITTEN SUBMISSION In response to your request, I am writing on behalf of our organisation which has been providing transport solutions for socially isolated people in Badenoch & Strathpey in the Highlands, for the past 16 years. We have certainly seen a growing demand for community transport with an ever increasing ageing population. Since we became computerised in 2000, we have registered over 1300 people who have a transport need in Badenoch & Strathspey, this currently equates to 10% of our population. From the 2010 NRS stats, 49.1% of the population of B & S are over 50 years of age. The majority of our community transport is supplied with volunteers using their own cars, we currently have 130 drivers and 11 volunteer telephonists organising the 600-700 car scheme journeys per month for socially isolated people. The majority of these journeys are health related, but as the scheme has grown, there has been a notable increase in the demand for leisure and social journeys. Through evaluations being carried out BSCTC have identified an improvement in people’s health and also identifying that without the inclusion of our services, many of the older people would not be able to remain independently in their own homes. Our Charity has taken on a more holistic approach to its services and has included services such as supported shopping with volunteers; prescription collection; support group outings (e.g. Visually Impaired Groups); Transport to Social Events; Tea Dance Afternoons; Short-term loan of wheelchairs and disability scooters; Skills Audit for Volunteers and the latest addition we have included is a Friendship Project, to support socially isolated people in their own homes.
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Initially the charity started off with a very small community car scheme, but it was soon recognised the need was more than just transport for people living in a rural area, so we have developed the services accordingly. BSCTC now has a 7-seater wheelchair accessible vehicle operating locally in Aviemore and is about to receive delivery of a 14-seater wheelchair accessible vehicle, which will hopefully deliver DRT services under a section 22 permit. The development of our services have been made possible, when 4 years ago, the Charity won a large Lottery Award through a BBC Television programme and were awarded just under £0.5m over 5 years. Without this funding we would not have been able to achieve the recognition we are so often given for our services. In 2009 our volunteers received The Queens Award for Voluntary Service, this made us very proud. With only 1 year to go until our funding runs out, we are very concerned that we cannot continue such valuable services, as our services are non-profit making. The staff team who manage the organisation consist of myself as a full-time Development Manager; a part-time Car Scheme Co-ordinator; Office Manager, Volunteer Recruitment Officer, Social Development Officer and a minibus driver. Almost 200 volunteers are involved in a variety of duties under the charity, the majority of these people being over 60 years themselves. As you can imagine, quite a considerable amount of our time is taken up managing volunteers as they are also treated as “staff”. Now, many community transport groups are facing the problem of having very few drivers coming on board who have a D1 on their licence to enable them to volunteer to drive minibuses. This is an issue for CT operators Scotland wide. BSCTC also receive grant funding from their Local Authority – The Highland Council, unfortunately this year we will face a 20% reduction in grant, only giving us 18% of the cost to run all of our projects. This is going to prove impossible for us, as under legislation for CT, we are not allowed to gain profit on the services we supply (i.e. no profit can be made on the cost of running a car within the car scheme or our minibus transport). This means, we spend a huge amount of our time trying to raise money to pay for other costs, rather than supporting our older population, majority of whom have health and mobility problems and are unable to access public transport. This we believe will have a big knock on effect on the public purse if we cannot continue at our current level. Investment from Government is a must if voluntary organisations are to be expected to take on more of the responsibility which the public sector are no longer providing or supporting. The voluntary sector does have a huge amount to offer, but do need financial support. You ask what we would like to see in our area, we would like to answer in bullet points, the things we believe are a priority:
A recognition from public bodies that CT is a necessity not an “add-on” Improved joint working with public agencies Guarantee of longer term funding – 1 year puts restrictions on rent of
premises, loans, leasing of vehicles etc.
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S22 registered bus services - Guarantees that our concessionary fare claims are reimbursed in full and not reduced in the last payment period because the budget has been capped. Large commercial bus operators can take this hit but not for profit organisations cannot.
Social enterprise – realistic tendering opportunites. The work that we are best placed to do is usually tendered in a way that enables big bus operators to tender at marginal cost between school contracts. We as small charities cannot compete with this.
If our local authority (THC) continue to make cutbacks in our funding, it will seriously jeopardising our ability to operate
Funding through a “single tier” public organisation (THC TECS) restricts our ability to develop and could have a serious knock-on consequence to the public purse
The very small contribution we receive from NHS Highland (2.75% of our total costs) requires to be substantially increased if we are to provide essential support for Social Care transport in our communities
Investment in training for volunteers to enable them to carry out their duties is vital
It must be noted that BSCTC already has a strategic approach which recognises that transport is key to being part of social care plans for older people and is a necessity in rural areas where public transport is very limited and we believe DRT involving CT is the way forward. Q: Does NHS bodies work closely with CT providers? – Not really, they do not appreciate/understand the value of CT, it is more of a “taken for granted” service, with very little contact. Q: How do you access non-emergency patient transport? - With great difficulty, we have heard from people that they have been trying the phone line for 3 days without success, often to be told NO. Our funders – THC do not allow our service to operate transport into our main hospital which is Raigmore in Inverness, some of our clients have been known to cancel appointments if they are unable to access patient transport. Q: Has your CT group experienced funding difficulties? YES, we are facing a 20% cut this year and we may also have no premises to operate from at the end of May when our current sub-lease runs out (i.e. if we cannot find sufficient funding to take over the lease). Also, we are asked to sign a lease for a minimum of 3 years with only a 1 year funding promise – very risky. Q: Do you think CT should fall within the concessionary fare scheme? YES I think S19 licences should be covered by the concessionary fare scheme. BSCTC surveyed our community car scheme clients, they do not mind paying a small fee as they feel the service makes them independent; more confident in travelling alone; gives them choices and they are supported by trained volunteers (Therefore, we do not wish car Schemes included). S22 registered services should also be receiving 100% reimbursement for fares foregone and not the current 60% which may not be paid in full because the
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annual budget has been capped. Note: Dave Thompson MSP has signed up to the Age Scotland Campaign regarding this point. Our Board would very much welcome a representative from your committee visiting our project to see the good work which is being carried out in Badenoch & Strathspey. You may also want to take a moment to look at our web site which identifies all the projects we deliver. On the site, there is a lot of photographic evidence showing the work involving both clients and volunteers of the service. www.ct4u.co.uk I do hope this has been helpful and if you require further information, we are only too happy to provide it. Maggie Lawson (on behalf of the Board of BSCTC) 11 April 2013
BALFRON STIRLINGSHIRE
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
At present in Balfron Community Transport is provided by WRVS Good Neighbours scheme. This works well and is much appreciated by the people who use this service. However it is limited to people who can afford to pay the cost of 45p per mile. Many people would prefer to use this method of transport as opposed to Hospital Transport as it means you can go in a car and only have to spend time for your own appointment and not wait for others. The hospitals for Balfron are in Stirling, Larbert or Falkirk so the cost of a journey is between £18 and £28. It is of course possible to go to these hospitals by public transport but there are no direct connections so a change has to be made in Stirling. The bus time-tables are not always suitable and long waits are possible which makes the whole journey very stressful, tiring and lengthy. It would be so much better if the WRVS volunteers were reimbursed by government as they are providing a service to people who are entitled to free transport. At present I am a Good Neighbours volunteer driver for WRVS and enjoy doing this. Perhaps in a few years’ time I will be in need of this type of help and I know that I would find it difficult to afford payment of these sums of money to attend hospital. I would not really like to go by Hospital transport going round areas collecting/ returning other people when I could be taken directly there and back. Shopping and dental appointments are easier as they are usually closer and therefore not so expensive but for the less well-off a subsidy would be a great help. Balfron Stirlingshire 23 March 2013
WRITTEN SUBMISSION 1 Summary of current situation: Buckie Accessible Bus Scheme was formed to provide affordable, accessible transport for the disadvantaged members of the community in and around Buckie and to offer transport to those who are socially excluded by lack of a public transport service. The service operates along the coastal villages from Cullen picking up through to and including Garmouth and Lhanbryde, travelling on into Elgin. There are daily services from Monday through to Friday taking passengers into Elgin (601). A twice-weekly service operates into Buckie from surrounding villages (603). A Keith Town service on Fridays was introduced in 2007 and has proved to be very popular; a second service was introduced on Tuesdays in October 2012 (602). In addition regular outings enable social inclusion and the opportunity for members to make new friends with visits to places of interest. These are organised independently by the Friends of BABS/Members Social Committee. They also organise twice a year 4 day short holidays for small groups of 10/12 persons with two volunteer staff in attendance. We do private hire for local groups, care homes etc, as well as individual journeys for customers needing to travel to medical appointments, normally in a small vehicle, which will carry one person in a wheel chair + 2 passengers + driver. The customer base is operated by membership, which is free and is available to any persons who have difficulty in accessing normal public transport because of age or infirmity either physical or mental or who have no public transport service and who live within or are temporarily resident in the aforementioned areas. It is hoped to expand to cover other villages and areas inland from the coast also. 2. Situation at present: Moray Council has cut ALL bus subsidies, which means in theory that most of the subsidised rural services will cease by June 22nd and the Moray Council Passenger Transport Unit will have to work out what it can do to replace what is missing. At the council budget vote in February 2012, Alan Wright the then Depute Convener asked that the PTU work in partnership with the 3rd Sector, specifically mentioning BABS, to provide a co-ordinated service for all in Moray. 12 months on, it seems that they are looking at this at long last, as we have been invited to submit our daily running costs for replacing their vehicles on the Dial M for Moray services in the Buckie and Keith areas and there will be discussions once the Council has read and accepted the impact assessment necessary before the subsidies become effective. Thus we may be doing extra work within our own area.
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3 Areas for Improvement: - Funding: Our original £80K grant from the Scottish Government’s Rural Transport Initiative was passed to Moray Council after 2007, and since then it has been cut drastically. Three years ago we were asked to cut our expenditure by £30K (from £70K) during the financial year, which we managed. The following year the proposed council budget talked of “re-designing” BABS Dial-a-Bus services to save £40K. We asked repeatedly what exactly this meant, but never had a reply, and when the budget was accepted by the council members, some of our local representatives rang us to say that we had received our £40K grant. However, we had a letter from the PTU telling us that our grant was cut to £0 and that they presumed we would be going out of business. We mounted a massive press campaign and they eventually gave us the £30K we had not spent the previous year. Since then it has been a constant battle to maintain our grant funding, using up a lot of our time - NB we have already had a 67.5% cut since the funding began. With increased efficiency, more volunteer hours and enhanced fund raising we have managed to stay afloat with our heads just above water.As a result we are unable to produce a firm business plan over the next 4/5 years to prove sustainability, which lessens even further our chances of lease-purchasing newer, greener, more efficient vehicles. - Vehicles: The cuts forced us to use up any reserves to stay alive, so we have not been able to renew our aging fleet. One 12 year old vehicle expired last year and we were fortunate to receive a small legacy from one of our customers which helped us buy a 6 year old low mileage minibus, which we have converted. We still have a 7 year old vehicle bought with Scottish Government money, which has proved very expensive to run and maintain, and which is now approaching 100,000 miles. It is averaging 19mpg, whereas a newer vehicle will do 30+ mpg. We are still contemplating buying another older but low mileage vehicle which will not be as comfortable as the coach built vehicle it will replace, but will at least be much cheaper to run. Our vehicles are: 56 reg Optare Alero - 91,000 miles 07 reg Peugeot Boxer LWB 36000miles 02 reg Renault Master SWB 30000 miles 54 reg Fiat Doblo small van conversion with wheelchair access 55000 miles. Obviously our maintenance costs are increasing as the vehicles age. - Partnership Working: As explained above, we have had little help or co-operation from the Moray PTU. Indeed last year they introduced Dial M for Moray services 5 days a week in both Buckie and Keith, duplicating our services, which we still feel was not at all in the spirit of partnership. They claim they cover a different market, ie non elderly or disabled, but their vehicles are fully wheelchair accessible and their brochures make great mention of this.
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- Concession Fares Our 601/602/603 fares enable our clients to go shopping, go to other personal business appointments, or even the medical practice in Buckie or the hospitals in Keith, Buckie and Elgin using their concession card. But our revenues are not as high as they should be, firstly because of the reduction in percentage of the full fare refunded by Transport Scotland, secondly because the amount of money set by the Scottish Government is not sufficient to pay all of the revenue due (ie it runs out before the end of the year), and thirdly because the ticket machines are managed by Moray Council PTU “back office” who have not yet managed to load into these machines our fare increases which we passed to them at the beginning of last September for a start date of October 1st 2012. Admittedly the software and machines seem unreliable, but a 6 month delay is unacceptable. - Customer Base: The people who use our services are very happy with the services we provide, but they normally ring us for the first time out of the blue, because of a lack of mobility due to death of partner, his/her decision to stop driving etc. Despite our high level press coverage in the local papers, they do not understand exactly what we offer (like the PTU and some council members); we have inundated surgeries, care homes, all local gathering places with pamphlets, but we gain most new members through word of mouth. We are convinced that there are many potential customers out there who could be eligible, but are using expensive taxis. Curiously there is also a sort of inverted snobbery, as some see having to resort to using our services as embarrassing or a lowering in social standing. - Growing demand We are in an area popular for retirement; many people go south or abroad to work, and return here when retiral occurs. And many people from all over the UK choose this area for retirement as well. Thus the potential numbers of users is ever-increasing and we will need to invest in more vehicles to satisfy demand. - Joined-up thinking There is obviously a real need for a combined strategic approach to transport provision for everyone, and there are too many vested interests acting only for their own jobs. There is a lack of a sense of community togetherness. Once a co-ordinated system is set up, easy to understand information has to be readily available to all potential users. Also, council departments have their own separate budgets, and there would appear to be little recognition that a service like ours is providing transport (PTU) and satisfying social needs (Community Services) - ie across 2 separate budgets. The PTU’s argument is always that they will not provide a grant for work which is on behalf of Community Services. Our buses are very much rolling social clubs, where (mostly) pensioners living alone can get to the shops and meet people. They are entitled to business and recreational Travel (EU, UK,Scottish Government), and some have said that, without us, they would go into a care home sooner, at a cost of at least £25000 per annum per person.
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-The operation of Community Transport is at the moment covered by Section 19 and 22 permits, but interpretations as to their use is complicated - a clearer system would be beneficial. -In rural areas, one vehicle could probably cope with most of the demand, from elderly, disabled and able-bodied people, but our charitable status as providing normally for disabled people makes this difficult. We say that we help all transport-disadvantaged people, which would include, for example, a young mother with small children living in a remote village with no bus service. As it is, many of our customers in urban Buckie are unable to walk to the nearest bus-stop, or carry their shopping into the house, which we do for them. Conclusion: We have been in operation for 13 years under ever changing circumstances, and it has to be said that it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, let alone improve and extend the services we offer. In the present economic climate it is obviously necessary for us to become as self-sufficient as we can, but the danger is that we could lose our BABS “ethos” as a concerned and caring organisation if we take on too much commercial business. Rules, regulations and the application thereof do not help. We trust that this submission will give you a clearer idea of how things are in Moray with 3rd sector community transport from our point of view. Please view the video on our website - www.babsbus.co.uk - for a customer appreciation of what we do. Buckie Accessible Bus Scheme 26 March 2013
CREICH, CROIK AND ARDGAY DAY CARE ASSOCIATION
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your inquiry.
We are a small organisation founded in the 90s with the intention of giving older people in our rural community a place where they could receive day care and attend lunch club without having to travel long distances.
At the outset we had no intention of becoming involved in transport but we soon found out that people from our very large catchment area had little or no transport to get them to the Centre. Public transport is virtually non-existent.
At the start we asked the local authority to help by introducing transport that was more local and demand responsive. They introduced a dial a bus which continues to this day but unfortunately it is limited because it cannot cater for all of our demand and there are time restrictions because the service only
operates between school contracts. This means that clients come in later than we would ideally like and are often asked to leave directly after lunch. Sometimes the bus would arrive while people were still eating and because they knew the bus was there they were having to bolt their food.
As a solution we sourced money to buy in additional transport from a local bus operator. Initially this was a grant from the Scottish Government but the Concordat led to the funding being transferred to Highland Council, specifically their transport department. When we applied to them for continuation funding they claimed we were ineligible and that another Highland Council department should be grant funding our service. The other department said no and our funding was withdrawn.
Without transport our day care/lunch club was not viable and we were faced with the prospect of having to close the facility because nobody could access it. We went for a radical solution, purchasing our own bus, applying for a Section 22 permit and registering our own bus routes. We have 3 routes and we operate transport services 4 days a week. So far we have managed to run these sustainably but we are constantly faced with challenges. The latest is the Scottish Government (Transport Scotland) decision to reduce the reimbursement rate for concessionary travel. Last year we received 67p in the £, this year it will be 60p and next year 58.8p. In addition the budget has been capped and we will only be given 20% of what we are entitled to in the last period of 2012/13. Would it be possible for S22 services to be treated differently in the concessionary fares scheme from registered services run by big bus operators? If we received 100% of the fare foregone we would be sustainable.
The answers to the queries set out on your flyer are as follows:
A lack of a strategic approach to community transport and the impact which a lack of transport has on people’s lives
Care has to be taken when talking about a strategic approach. As mentioned above we have suffered at the hands of council officers who have decided to provide a service that fits between school contracts rather than a service that provides what the community needs.
We were encouraged to tender for the local dial a bus but from the outset we were at a disadvantage because the tender was designed to enable the local bus company to fit the dial a bus between school contracts. We submitted a conforming and alternative tender that offered to run the dial a bus 5 days a week from 9am to 5pm. The Council took the lowest price for a minimum service which they feel the community has to fit in with. The awarded contract does not fit the needs of the people coming to our Centre let alone the needs of the broader community.
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If a strategic approach is the way forward then it should perhaps be via Community Planning and separate from the individual departments in the Council and NHS and Scottish Ambulance Service budget holders.
The growing demand for community transport provision
Demand is growing because we have a rapidly ageing population many of whom live alone. Many have no family, others have family who have moved to work away from their local area. Without transport to get to the shops, medical appointments and to socialise in centres such as ours, these people are isolated. There seems to be no account taken of this and no priority given to solving the problem.
Providing transport is a costly business and we are catering for people most of whom have an entitlement to free bus travel. At the moment we run 3 registered bus services but as the percentage reimbursement from Transport Scotland reduces we are having to think seriously about whether or not we can continue to be sustainable. We hope that the inquiry can find a way to ensure continuation of community transport provision across the country and would urge that those community transport groups who operate registered services receive reimbursement at 100%.
We also claim Bus Service Operators Grant at 14.4p per km, but we live in an area where fuel prices are a lot higher than in urban areas.
A lack of a coordinated approach with NHS bodies and community transport providers
Our bus services can be used by people wanting to attend appointments at the local medical centre but none of our routes extend to the main hospitals. These are at great distance from us.
Eligibility criteria for non-emergency patient transport and the cost to NHS of taxi use
We know of people who have been refused non-emergency patient transport and told to use public transport, however some of these people find it virtually impossible to use public transport because they have mobility problems that make it impossible for them to step up on to the bus and worse still cross the pedestrian bridges at Ardgay and Lairg stations.
Replacing community transport vehicles and funding planning
We try to include for vehicle replacement in our fares and charges but such things as reduction in the concessionary fares reimbursement rate make this more and more difficult.
Access to concessionary fares schemes
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Ideally we would like to run our services on our S19 permit and not as registered routes. This would give us a lot more flexibility. The downside for the general community would be that we could only carry people who had become members and not the general public.
We agree with the Age Scotland campaign and would urge that this is taken forward and that reimbursement for fares foregone would be at 100%.
Thank you for allowing us to submit our views to your inquiry.
Lorraine Askew Manager, Bradbury Day Care Centre 12 April 2013
ECAS
WRITTEN SUBMISSION Ecas is an Edinburgh based charity established in 1902 to improve the lives of people with disabilities. We have always taken a keen interest in transport issues as these have a major impact on people with disabilities. We have previously commissioned research in this area, lobbied for improvements and run our own schemes, including the original taxi card scheme. We welcome the Committee’s inquiry. Ecas provides classes and activities, grants to individuals and a befriending project. We know from the experience of our clients and our efforts to arrange transport for them that lack of sufficient community transport is leading to increased social isolation. This evidence is split into several broad areas. A strategic approach The lack of a strategic approach to transport for people with disabilities is clear from the current split of responsibilities:
Disability issues are reserved to Westminster, including some aspects directly related to transport.
Benefits, in this context particularly Disability Living Allowance (Mobility) and its successor PIP (mobility component), are reserved to Westminster. The Motability scheme is reserved to Westminster and linked to DLA/PIP.
Transport is devolved to Holyrood. The National Concessionary Card is devolved to Holyrood.
The Scottish Ambulance Service has some responsibilities. In general local transport issues are handled by local authorities who
may make local provisions such as: o A taxi card scheme. o Funding to community transport providers. o Parking and parking fees.
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o Subsidised bus routes. o Their own internal transport fleet.
We make this point because it is important to see Community Transport (CT) in the context of other transport provision and the lack of a strategic approach to transport for people with disabilities leads to confusing scenarios such as:
Differences between local authorities. It is possible for two people with the same impairment to have very
different levels of support – for example one could have a Motability car, a blue badge, a taxi card, a National Concessionary Card and access to community transport whilst the other would have the NCC and community transport.
It could well be that despite having the NCC neither could actually access local buses (either because the bus is not accessible or because they cannot get to the bus stop).
The importance of community transport Even in areas where all, or nearly all, buses have wheelchair access there are other reasons why some people are unable to use buses (often they are unable to get to and from bus stops). Even if taxis are available they are very expensive. Unless the person has a car (and if they cannot drive, a driver) this leaves community transport as the only viable option. We find that our clients are often unable to attend events and become more socially isolated unless we are able to assist with their transport costs. We commissioned research1 by the University of Glasgow that showed that “very few people with complex mobility impairments used leisure facilities” and that “lack of appropriate transport facilities” is a key contributor to this. Current issues with community transport Community transport often suffers from:
A lack of clear priorities. For a variety of reasons CT is often available to a wide range of people, some of whom will use it from choice rather than necessity. This can lead to lack of availability to those who really need it.
Rationing. Some providers are rationing provision, in particular by refusing block or repeat bookings. Where regular attendance is required (for example courses or programmes where payment in advance is required) clients find themselves forced to commit without being assured of transport.
Lack of volunteer drivers. Using volunteer drivers has become increasingly complex. Changes to driving licence groups mean that a car driving licence issued after a certain date is not valid for a minibus. The need to provide additional training, in addition to PVG clearance and other administration, can put off potential volunteers or be unviable
1 RECREATIONAL AND LEISURE FACILITIES AVAILABLE IN EDINBURGH FOR PEOPLE
WITH SEVERE AND COMPLEX MOBILITY IMPAIRMENTS. A report for ECAS compiled by The
Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research at the University of Glasgow.
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for charities unless there is a clear return guaranteed. Some people are giving up.
Lack of capacity. Despite rising demand provision is falling. Dial-a-Ride provision in Edinburgh has fallen steadily from 25,067 journeys in 2005/6 to 17,854 in 20011/2. Again, some people have given up trying to book.
Under funding An Edinburgh taxi card provides a £3 subsidy for 104 single journeys per year. £3 does not go far in a taxi.
Lack of Co-ordination is probably the key issue. At present there are many CT providers. In Edinburgh there are at least 5 voluntary organisations with significant CT operations, as well as Council transport, Patient Transport Services, organisations with one or two accessible minibuses, and other support such as volunteer driver pools. This is in addition to taxi and private hire car services supported by Council contracts, supported by the Council funded taxi card scheme or through contracts that have a transport element to them. The lack of co-ordination inevitably leads to inefficient use of resources. We would highlight:
Published articles and reports suggesting that more integration of existing transport could lead to better efficiency.2,3,4,5 These reports refer to studies in Scotland, Finland, Belgium and Wiltshire. The Scottish Executive report is particularly noteworthy as it states “…… the concerns of the Audit Commission that there may be potential for improved value through better integration of services can be reinforced based on the evidence in this review suggesting underutilised social services vehicles, patient transport and dial-a-ride undertaking similar roles and multiple Travel Despatch Centres for very similar trips.” Published figures suggest financial savings of up to 20% combined with passenger numbers increasing by 15%.
There appears to be little or no co-ordination between the Council, the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS), community operators (such as Dial-a-Ride), the NHS and taxis. All are operating Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) for people who cannot use mainstream transport and there are no procedures or systems to avoid the common scenario of two or more partially filled buses from more than one operator doing journeys that one bus could have done. The Scottish Executive report detailed above highlights this as an area for action.
Some council grants/SLAs/contracts with third sector providers include provision for transport for clients. This is often by taxi. Details were requested from a local authority under a Freedom of Information request to see if there was scope for using other available transport. Ecas was advised that it is likely that such information is not held.
Council and others currently provide grants to local community groups to purchase their own minibuses. These are often used only a few
2 Responding to Demand by Brian Masson, Holyrood magazine Feb 08 3 Review of Demand Responsive Transport in Scotland, Scottish Executive 2006 4 SEStran Strategy Manager Presentation to SATA AGM 2006 5 Report by Loughborough University into Wiltshire DRT available at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/demand-responsive-study-200607.pdf
times per week. There may be benefit in analysing the potential cost and environmental benefits of co-ordinating these vehicles. An alternative may be to encourage groups to use the services of a central pool – perhaps by providing vouchers for that purpose instead of cash for a separate vehicle.
Conclusions We and our clients find it most frustrating that providing suitable affordable transport is very often the most difficult part of arranging activities for our clients. We have clients who have not left their home literally for years, and transport can be a key element in that. There seems to be a perception that taxis are the solution to many transport problems for people with mobility impairments. This is not the case as taxis are very expensive and the lack of training of some drivers is also of concern to many disabled travellers who feel unsafe. There also seems to be a perception that people with physical impairments can be flexible in their travel arrangements and do not need to travel at set times. This is also untrue; people with mobility impairments do wish to attend regular activities and they do need reliable transport to take part in society. Ecas welcomes the committee’s inquiry and would be keen to provide further information if so requested. David Griffiths Chief Executive, Ecas 10 April 2013
INTERLOCH TRANSPORT
WRITTEN SUBMISSION ARE YOU SEEING A GROWING DEMAND FOR COMMUNITY TRANSPORT? Yes, for the following reasons. An aging population
As the population ages dependency increases and mobility decreases. We see residents who cannot drive, who may need escorting, who may have dementia, who may be wheelchair bound or have other more severe mobility issues.
As the population becomes more dependant residents require (as they age and their mobility decreases over time) o Door to door Transport, rather than from a bus stop. o Door to door Transport with an escort to support them to
appointments, round the shops or to services and social clubs.
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o Housebound services, as residents age they may become housebound so they then need shopping and prescriptions delivered at the very basic end of support.
More and more young people are moving away from rural areas cutting off traditional support networks, the same goes as people retire into a rural areas. Even in more urban areas younger generations move away to find work or to study.
Changes in policy Care in the Community
More and more people are living and being cared for in their homes, the vital link in the chain is missing at present. There are obvious problems whereby people are being encouraged to stay in their own homes but have no way of getting out to their doctors appointments or even to just get their shopping in.
The Ambulance Service
The Ambulance service is now enforcing its criteria based on medical need rather than a mixture of medical need and location.
HOW DO YOU ACCESS NON EMERGENCY PATIENT TRANSPORT As a transport provider, we supply non-emergency patient transport alongside transport to doctor’s surgeries and other health services. DO YOU THINK THAT COMMUNITY TRANSPORT SHOULD FALL WITHIN CONCESSIONARY SCHEMES Yes.
A vast proportion of our clients are entitled to concessionary scheme passes but are unable to use them as their mobility is so limited that they need door to door transport.
We now charge fares for our journeys, there is a lingering resentment however that our services are not seen as being free as normal transport is.
Any funding stream that could help stabilise our sector is welcome but. Retrospective claims would cause havoc with a small organisations
cash flow and budget – especially at the start of such a scheme. The cost of supported door to door transport is higher per person than
the current concessionary fair would account for. Community Transport is more than just transport, would shopping
delivery be counted in such a scheme or prescription delivery not to mention escorting costs.
DO WE NEED A MORE STRATEGIC APPROACH We most definitely do.
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Residents need door to door transport, local economies need the
income from employment and client spending. Door to door transport is needed to facilitate changes in government
policy Door to door transport is needed to link with the needs of social
services and patient transport. To make this happen in a cost effective way we need direction and
stable funding. The community Transport sector is made up of many small, inefficient
groups with no strategy, security or economies of scale. There is no centralised Administration service so we can’t bulk buy for
example (this is a role the CTA could take on). Every small group is negotiating its own insurance or paying a high price for individual vehicles. We cannot negotiate lower maintenance costs or get much reduction in fuel prices. If you come within the jurisdiction of the SPT for example you may be lucky to have some support if you plan on going down the my bus route but if not and you need smaller vehicles for door to door transport then you have a problem.
Centralised booking and scheduling services that can link up with the ambulance service and NHS booking departments.
Stable funding. CT funding is not ring fenced and is presently often decided on a year on year basis. Funding streams are complicated and inefficient. CT groups are hanging on a thread at the moment.
DO YOUR LOCAL NHS BODIES WORK CLOSELY WITH COMMUNITY TRANSPORT PROVIDERS? We work closely with our local social services departments and doctor’s surgeries. Both groups use our service to facilitate their own. HAS YOUR COMMUNITY TRANSPORT GROUP EXPERIENCED FUNDING DIFFICULTIES Yes due to :
Rising cost of fuel and insurance Rising frailty of clients and resultant costs Reduced council core funding (CT funds are not ring fenced) Reduced grant income due to increased competition Rising costs of vehicle maintenance – replacing vehicles has become
incredibly difficult so as they get older the costs increase. POINTS TO NOTE
Community transport is cheap, flexible and demand led The sector is the solution to many of our current and upcoming elderly
transport issues Emphasis should be put on door to door transport or we will end up
with a network that most cannot use.
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The sector needs long term simplified funding streams. Council funds must be ring fenced.
The sector would benefit from economies of scale (umbrella purchasing, merging of smaller groups, standardised scheduling software, vehicle advertising, insurance, maintenance.
If the concessionary scheme is to be extended:
Thought must be given to the practicalities, backdated claims will result in cash flow issues for example
The scheme must either cover full cost or be used alongside small fares. Transporting wheelchair bound clients door to door will cost more than a mobile person stepping onto a bus.
Community Transport is not just transport, what about escort services, shopping delivery and prescription deliveries, thought must be given to what services will be covered.
Interloch Transport 25 March 2013
KILLEARN COMMUNITY COUNCIL
WRITTEN SUBMISSION Killearn Community Council, at its meeting held on 20 March 2013, discussed the current Scottish Government consultation on community transport. The following summarises the discussion. KCC welcomed the opportunity to comment on community transport which is an important element in the lives of many local residents. We were pleased to learn of the Committee’s expressed desire to identify the main priorities and to move the debate on. The key issues which we identified related to
(i) The need to improve the current stock of buses which were judged to be mainly cold and uncomfortable. It may be that smaller, more economic, buses could meet the needs of users.
(ii) The need for a more integrated approach, based on an analysis of
user needs. Although we realise that specific examples are not necessarily being sought at this stage, the following may shed some light on the perceived needs of our community: Buses passing through Killearn should link with Milngavie trains and with service 119 going to central Glasgow. Consideration should be given to timing evening services to enhance access to events such as concerts in Glasgow.
We are aware that there may not be additional resources available to enhance public transport, but believe that improved planning could well lead to better use of existing resources.
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We trust that these comments will be helpful and look forward to the outcomes of the consultation in due course. Margery Burdon Secretary, Killearn Community Council 8 April 2013
VIVIAN LAYCOCK (individual)
WRITTEN SUBMISSION Here is a short summary of my husband’s condition. He has MND - Motor Neuron Disease - diagnosed 4 years ago. The illness progresses in small incremental steps in helplessness as the muscles no longer function. He is permanently in an electric wheelchair, cannot speak, cannot eat and after an operation a year ago he has special nutrition pumped into his stomach without which he would have starved to death. But, like Professor Stephen Hawking, he looks forward to each day and his mind is as alert as ever. Fortunately his arms are not affected yet and he communicates via a white board and pen. Transportation Since last year he has been unable to go in the car - Kia Piccanto. And he does not qualify for Mobility Car Allowance as he was diagnosed after the age of 65! Yet I am quite capable of driving! But at 67 I would not qualify either although I have no health problems at all and take no medication. This is discrimination! I cannot afford to buy a specially adapted car. I believe the age to qualify runs from age 3 to age 65. So many people are amazed at this law. Now for the good news. For appointments in Highland to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness or to the local hospital Nairn, the booking appointment system, Patient Transportation Service, works very well as long as I remember to phone two or three days in advance. Now for the bad news For leisure activities it has been very challenging. There is one taxi to the High Street from our house one mile away and that costs £8 there and back daytime. Yet we both have cards for Free bus travel. And the other taxi for disabled is always booked for school runs - and also hospital appointments as the local public bus is not disabled friendly for the infirm or Mums with pushchairs - never mind wheelchairs . The Community Buses are only designed for Groups and I am sure could be used for hospital runs to free up the ambulance service. But that requires co-
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ordination with NHS so that a group of patients could be picked up 9.00am for morning appointments or 1.00pm for afternoon appointments although for different departments After long-winded consultation with Dial-a-Bus we are about to try an outing to town and the driver is coming tomorrow afternoon for a dummy run to practise rolling in and strapping down the wheelchair with my husband in it. The driver had one training session last November. So my husband hopefully will give the driver confidence. As you can surmise from the above, quality of life for the Carer is very hard to come by. And most Carers are too tired to put pen to paper to explain the endless frustrations whether it be transport or other issues. I write on behalf of them all. Vivian Laycock 31 March 2013
NORTH ARGYLL VOLUNTEER CAR SCHEME
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
Community Transport: do we need a more strategic approach? Yes, we think more strategic planning, either at government level with a mandate to councils, or even more strategic planning at council level would be beneficial. Even identifying the gaps is useful, but then what? You can’t magic up a voluntary group just because there is a gap in transport provision. Nor can you magic one up when a bus service is reduced, or cut altogether. A group like ours cannot undertake any form of contract with anyone; we can never guarantee a volunteer driver will be available for any particular journey.
Are you seeing a growing demand for community transport provision? Yes, as the population ages and other public services are reduced, eg supported bus services in decline, and change in the eligibility criteria for patient transport.
Do your local NHS bodies work closely with community transport providers? Yes, on a local level – local medical practices, and yes we have had funds in the past from the Health Improvement Fund – but not really with the local hospital. All our dealings are with the passenger. We are occasionally phoned and asked to eg take a patient from Oban to Paisley, ‘today’, but we don’t go that far, we don’t take passengers who are not in our area, or who aren’t already risk assessed members of the scheme, and we don’t do …’today’. There are of course always exceptions and if a local person asks if it is possible to be taken to the surgery ‘today’ – we always manage that. But that is the ‘community aspect’, we will know this person and not want to let them down.
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Has your community transport group experienced funding difficulties? Of course! It’s a roller coaster. Historically many funders were interested only in ‘New and exciting projects’, but we have noticed a slight change in attitude over the last year or so. Funders now ask questions to find out how stable and secure we are, and are keen to know about any council funding – which seems to add authority to our case. Most importantly: The Scottish Government Rural Community Transport Initiative used to pass RING-FENCED funds to the council, but this ring-fencing stopped in 2008, and the council could spend the funds anywhere it liked. Returning to a reasonable amount of ring fenced funds, with a ‘guarantee’ of repeat grants would encourage more groups to set up and operate. Setting up is costly in time, energy and money and if there is no security of continuation funding .. questionable.
Councils are increasingly looking to the community transport sector to deliver locally-based services which are cost-effective, and geared to the needs of the individual – but without decent, long term secure funding it just won’t happen this way.
Do you think that Community Transport should fall within concessionary fare schemes? Only four passengers – in over 10 years – have asked about this. We are more like a taxi service than a bus: door to door, help in and out, sometimes accompanying passengers as far as hospital department waiting rooms, pushing a shopping trolley etc. Summing up: the govt needs to understand what a small volunteer scheme like the North Argyll Volunteer Car Scheme is, how and why it works, why we need security of funding (for employment of co-ordinator), that that security allows us to access third party grants, (which can double the value to the council), that we are not a statutory provider of transport, nor do we have a contract with anyone. We are totally dependent on volunteers, and that’s what they are – volunteers, and a volunteer doesn’t always have to do what is asked of them. (although they almost always do!).
Rose Wands Chair North Argyll Volunteer Car Scheme 12 April 2013
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STEVE RENWICK (individual)
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
GENERAL COMMENTS A fundamental review of Community Transport is essential at this time especially in view of the impending integration of adult health and social care and also the Self Directed Support Act 2013. Both of the above-noted issues will have a major bearing on how Community Transport is delivered in the future. The current system of Community Transport is, in my opinion, characterised by the following issues (which are not prioritised):
The Concordat signed between the Scottish Government and CoSLA heralded the end of ring-fencing for Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) funding and this may have diluted the status of DRT as a Council funding priority in many local authorities.
An implication of the above-noted policy is that there are local Community Transport initiatives that are successful but these are not replicated across the country – this may lead to accusations of post-code prioritisation.
There is a reliance on revenue funded Service Level Agreements (SLA) between the public and third sectors, These SLAs have no legal status and produce limited information to show whether value for money or satisfying service-user demand is being met.
As noted above, the relationship between the public and third sectors is largely revenue based with no capital available for new vehicles. This has led to an ageing fleet of vehicles together with an increase in the maintenance burden and thus a risk to service delivery
The top-slicing of funding for, and the lack of SLAs relating to, the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) – Non Emergency Transport service is hampering efforts to share services insofar as the SAS is unwilling to yield budgets to either local authorities or the third sector to tackle journeys that it no longer sees as being part of its clinical model.
There are, to my knowledge, no SLAs between Health Boards and the SAS so it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess whether best value is being achieved.
SAS eligibility criteria is not published or wholly understood by local authorities and hence there is great difficulty in understanding why certain ambulance journey requests are now being rejected.
The changing service profile for the SAS is not well understood amongst local authorities and changes are being made prior to ensuring full understanding is achieved.
Community Transport must be seen in the overall context of initiatives such as Taxicard, Dial-a-ride and other local DRT schemes; it is so much more than operating a fleet of mini-buses.
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The Scottish Government follow-up report to Audit Scotland’s report on Access to Health and Social care is still outstanding. This should be published prior to any Committee inquiry.
SPECIFIC ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED The under-noted issues must be addressed as part of the remedial action necessary to create a sound and affordable system of Community Transport across Scotland:
A strategic stocktake should be taken of all funds, across the four sectors – public, private, third and independent, of monies spent annually on Community Transport – this should give clarity as to the level of investment and hopefully illustrate the paucity of good management information about what these sums actually buy.
Standard definitions – the Community Transport arena must adopt standard definitions for terms such as ambulances, service-users, social and clinical journey.
Transparent eligibility criteria – must be published and hence anyone eligible to travel has equal priority to do so (a recent SAS innovation).
Educating public sector employees to avoid using transport as an afterthought and thus defaulting to expensive solutions.
Non-ring-fencing of SAS monies must be considered to allow Health Boards to explore how best to allocate funds for patient travel and reduce the enormous spend on private ambulances.
SLAs, as a minimum, or contracts preferably, should be developed between HBs and SAS to allow VFM to be judged and shared services opportunities to be explored.
Self-Directed Support – the ability to implement the new legislative requirements must be “front and centre” for any proposed arrangements vis Community Transport arising from the inquiry.
Expectation management around this inquiry will be crucial especially as funding for both revenue and capital is very tight indeed. Government statistics show that revenue funding levels will not recover back to 2010 levels until 2026.
Contribution to air quality – it would be good to match the Scottish Government’s aspiration to create an Electric Vehicle Charging Network with a coherent pan-Scotland matched funding initiative to introduce electric/hybrid/hydrogen or other alternative fuelled vehicles for Community Transport.
Steve Renwick 21 March 2013
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SKYE AND LOCHALSH COUNCIL FOR VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
We have been operating a community transport service on the islands of Skye & Raasay since 1954. It started with a car (an old A40) and in 1976 a minibus was obtained for the outlying areas and a car used around the Portree area. The service is primarily for the elderly and those with disabilities. We have a wheelchair accessible Minibus which goes to the outlying areas to bring pensioners in to the main village of Portree for their shopping, banks, post offices etc. We also provide transport for the weekly pensioners lunch club using both the Minibus and volunteers using their own cars. We also provide transport for a local church every Sunday. All our drivers are volunteers, (currently 43), we receive an annual grant from the Local Authority (Highland Council) which has gone up and down over the years. For the past 2 years it was only £5000 which was a 50% cut on previous years, however for the new financial year we have been awarded £10,902. We have to fundraise to replace our vehicles every 5-6 years, our current bus (no 6) was purchased in 2010 costing £38,000. We have for years been campaigning for CT schemes to be included in the concessionary fares scheme. (We operate under a Section 19 permit). Public transport is thin on the ground in this part of the world and for the majority of pensioners inaccessible. There is a great injustice on pensioners in rural areas as their bus pass is of little use to them whereas pensioners in towns and cities can hop on a bus and travel for free. We have to charge fares as part of our grant conditions (it used to be a voluntary donation) but it’s the same for all no matter where they live. If it was set according to distance many of our users couldn’t afford it. We cover a large geographical area the majority of our trips are around 80-100 miles, last year our mileage was 8844 and we carried over 1000 passengers. There is increased demand for our services especially in the past couple of years. The withdrawal of LA support to lunch clubs meant we had to fill the gap, also we get requests for patient transport. We don’t cover the whole area as with only one vehicle this would be impossible. There are a few other community minibuses operating a more localised service but I am aware of the need in the Lochalsh and Wester Ross areas. Transport is an issue for everybody in the remote rural areas both for service providers as well as those who need to travel to access the most basic of services such as shops, banks, hospital appointments etc, if you don’t have access to a car than life can be very difficult. Community transport schemes are a lifeline for communities such as ours. Chrisanne MacDonald Skye & Lochalsh Council for Voluntary Organisations 11 April 2013
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SOUTH WEST COMMUNITY TRANSPORT
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
BACKGROUND The transport project was set up in 2004 by Greater Pollok Community Forum. This service was to try and give the residents who were unable to use public transport either due to illness, disability, age, distance access to another kind of transport. The forum accessed funding from the then GCTOG now (Community Transport-Glasgow) and the Key Fund to set the service up. A full-time development worker and a part-time development worker (Consultant) were employed to get the project started. It was to set up an afternoon hospital visiting service for the area and involve volunteers to come on board and help with the project at this time we had no vehicles of our own. The forum following discussion with various community centres’s that had vehicles were allowed to brokerage the vehicles for the services they wished to provide for the community. This also meant that the centre’s who owned the vehicles were paid for the use of the minibuses thus helping to generate money and keep the vehicles on the road. (Something that still continues today). We also managed to access a 17 seater minibus from CT-G on a long term loan which was a great help in setting up other services such as the Hoppa Shoppa taking people to shopping trips and away days twice a week over the year. We also covered the free hospital visiting service started around 2006 taking people from the South West areas of Glasgow to the Southern General, Victoria, Western and Gartnavel hospitals using the CT-G minibus . In 2007 the Forum managed to access funding to progress the transport initiative from the Key Fund and Fairshare Fund. In total we were allocated £30,000 from the Key Fund for year 1. From the Fairshare fund over two years we were allocated £88000 this allowed the initiative to employ a full time co-ordinator, part-time administrator and a driver trainer to teach MIDAS, PATs training for our staff and volunteer drivers. This funding was secured until May 2009 within the targets for this funding the Transport Initiative would become a Charity and a Company limited by guarantee. Following the end of the funding 2009 the project had become a Charity and Company Limited by Guarantee. SERVICES Hoppa The services we provide today are the Hoppa Shoppa trips that cover Great Pollok and environs. In Jan 2013 we set up a Hoppa Shoppa in Govan and Craigton and surrounding areas funded by the transition fund for a year this allowed us to employ a paid driver for this project.
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Minibus Hire We supply transport to many groups, schools, nurseries, disabled groups, ethnic, carers, colleges and organisations within South West /East Glasgow. All of the groups have to be affiliated to our project this is an annual fee of £30+VAT. Our individual members who use the Hoppa all pay a membership of £5 per year. Our costs are as follows Fees for affiliated groups who hire our minibuses Hire Fee (Per Hire) £15.00 - Mileage £1.30p per mile all self drive hire must pay VAT. If you use our volunteers a minimum cost is added for their expenses (Subsistence/Mileage etc) Training MIDAS and PATs training is also a service we provide we did have our own trainer in-house until he left for a new position. He still comes in and does training for the project as a volunteer and also does voluntary driving when needed. Many of our past employees are still volunteers for the project when they have spare time. CAR SCHEME Back in 2011 we applied to various Trusts trying to access funding to set up a pilot volunteer car scheme for the South West area although it took a long time we managed to access £25.360 from trusts such as the Robertson Trust, Awards for All, Robina Goodlad, and many other smaller trusts/organisations. This let us employ a Development Worker to get this pilot set up. Targets were 50 people taken to appointment /hospital over the year and 20 volunteer drivers in post. At the end of the pilot we had gone well over our target for appointments and had 16 volunteer driver all PVG checked and working with the project. Statistics taken from our Evaluation report for Awards for All on Car scheme Jan 12 – Oct 12 Analysis of the records indicates that the car scheme undertook 145 journeys in support of 72 people from January to October 2012 as follows:
Month Journeys January 1 February 10 March 14 April 13 May 11 June 13 July 20 August 22 September 23 October 18 Total 145
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Patient analysis by post code and gender:
Patients G46 G51 G52 G53 Total Male 3 3 8 3 17 Female 1 4 23 27 55 Total 4 7 31 30 72
Analysis of patient journeys by destination: Surgery/Centre Doctors
Appointment Clinic Appointment
Hospital Appointment
Crookston Medical Centre 8 Dr Doak Surgery 13 Govan Health Centre 1 Sheddens Medical Centre 8 Mearns Medical Centre 3 Braidcraft Medical Centre 39 20 23 Pollok Health Centre 3 1 Dr Mair Surgery 14 The Crescent Medical Centre
4 6
Westfield Medical Centre Hillington
2
Totals 48 20 77 Funding finished for the pilot November 2012. The service is still running due to the care and enthusiasm from our volunteers. Since then we have applied for further funding to keep it going to date we have had £8500 for the next two years from the Robertson Trust and await responses from other funder on whether our applications have been successful. This service I feel is taking some of the pressure of the NHS regarding missed appointments as we are getting people to appointment/hospitals on time and thus helping to elevate the pressure on the surgeries and the NHS. The help we receive from the surgeries is due to the practice managers who will identify people who need the service and give out our information to them to contact us. Once they are registered they just call when they need to use the service. I feel we could have a better relationship and more support from the NHS CHALLENGES South West Community Transport’s core funding ended in 2009, and since then we continually feel the pressures whilst attempting to become more financially sustainable. We would not be operating if it was not for our volunteers - our volunteers are crucial to our success. We have managed to keeps the project going due to our wonderful volunteers, as well as our small staff team and board members who come in and support our work (sometimes seven days a week if needed!). We have received no major revenue funding to date, however we have been able to secure smaller grants for the following;
Car Scheme (applications to various small trusts)
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Part time Driver (DRT Grant to cover the costs of a driver, 16hrs p/wk @ £6.75p/hr)
Equipment & Training where/when required However the biggest challenge facing the organisation is the costs associated with the vehicles. We have five minibuses, 3 of which are wheelchair accessible and the other 2 have a 17 seat capacity. The disabled access buses are used on a daily basis for local activity groups within sheltered housing and nursing homes as many of our elderly Shoppa Hoppa members have disabilities. Our vehicles range from 1998-2008 registrations and as such we continuously attempt to secure funding to purchase newer vehicles. This is mainly down to the fact that we must ensure that older vehicles are replaced at the end of their service. The challenges of ensuring that vehicle are succeeded by newer vehicles is an expensive one, particularly when you operate in a competitive environment where you have a central objective of providing a low-cost quality service that ensures continuity, accessibility and benefit to the community, but feel unable to build up an adequate level of reserves that would allow the organisation to develop. We are currently only able to ensure our vehicles are regularly serviced and carry out the required 10 weekly safety checks. Our insurance annually is £5678 and our fuel cost are in the region of £13,000; this is not including any major repairs, road tax and the compulsory 10 weekly safety checks. New vehicles are urgently needed, but funding for them is very hard to come by. If the government would include Community Transport groups in the Concessionary Travel scheme not only would more people be able to access affordable transport, but the sector would be in a stronger, more sustainable position and be able move away from a certain level of grant dependence for organisational development (of new schemes/programmes) or for funding new vehicles. In addition, we could be doing a lot more: Public Social Partnerships with NHS and local Councils would be mutually advantageous and would not necessarily interfere with private sector transport services. On the ground we are seeing an increased demand for Community Transport services, as more groups/schools/agencies are having their traditional funding slashed and cannot afford to use larger private companies as they are far too expensive. Concessionary Fares Age Scotland launched the Still Waiting Campaign from our offices as we were one of their case studies for the campaign the use of the concessionary fare scheme would be beneficial to the pass holders and the community transport sector the only thing is that our sector would have to be paid the full 100% of the fares from the government unlike the larger bus companies as we do not have the benefit of the grants and income that they have at their disposal
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3,371
3,018
832
374
141
101
75
3,926
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
elderly
disable
d
youth
young
care
rs
unem
ploye
d
nurse
ry &
scho
ols
ethnic
other
14,598
7,356
2,108
2,020
553
329
245
19,667
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
elderly
disa
ble
d
yout
h
youn
g c
are
rs
unemplo
yed
oth
er
ethnic
nursery
& sc
hools
The following statistics are taken from our 2011/12 Annual Report Passengers carried Miles Travelled
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COMMENTS FROM USER GROUPS/AGENCIES AND INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS I have dealt with several patients from Braidcraft medical Centre and more recently referred a patient from Westfield medical Centre. She is registered but has not yet used the service, as far as I am aware. Those that use the service all find it very beneficial. They appreciate the help in being escorted into their clinic / surgery and being able to leave as soon as they are ready (unlike hospital transport). They find your volunteers extremely helpful and like being able to take their Carer with them. They previously used the service when there was no charge. They still appreciate the service but 1 said she would think more carefully about using it for very short journeys. Clare Beattie NHS I currently manage and coordinate exercise provision classes on behalf NHSGGC, Vitality classes are targeted to older population frailer adults who have fallen or have a fear of falling. The classes are held across the city of Glasgow, there are held in community centre and other sports facilities. These classes work with the support and input from Maggie and her fantastic team at SWCT, the attendees would not be able to access the classes and would certainly lose their focus and fitness for day to day living. SWCT use their buses to pick up and transport clients/attendees to the classes citywide and then ensure their health and safety getting to and from the bus to the facility as well as picking them up and transporting them back to the homes after their exercise class. The volunteer driver scheme is fantastic, I am a great supporter of the first class service, their reliability and effective delivery for our users if very highly regarded and needed within the community. Neil McIntosh Ass Physical and Outdoor Activities Officer – Vitality Glasgow Life/Glasgow Sport Without the community transport service organizations’ such as Crossroads would in no way whatsoever be able to afford travel some of the integral parts of our programme including employability work for programme’s such as Duke of Edinburgh, young person led Youth Bank projects and various other trips and experiences across the programme particularly during school break. If community transport was not available we would be extremely worried about the viability of delivering a lot of our work and see SWCT as an integral service to individuals and community groups.’ Nicky Millar Playbarn Youth Group This service has been a lifeline for me. The support and help I've experienced; the kindliness, and consideration has sustained me through very difficult
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times. When I'm taken to the various surgery, clinic, and hospital appointments, I enjoy their friendly, helpful, company. Tommy Wallace Car scheme user Rainbow Care Volunteer Project The organisation has been accessing the local community transport service for over 11 years! We have always received an excellent and courteous service from staff and volunteers who are involved in the project. The transport is very affordable for our charity/voluntary organisation, without the community transport our older people would be more isolated. "Working in partnership with other organizations within your own community to provide services for our elderly people" "Affordable community transport" "Experience with elderly people" "Knowledge of the area" Alison Please regard this as a response from Cartha Queen's Park rugby club since my use of SWCT has been mostly on the Club's behalf, although occasionally funded through the Trust. As I think you know, we have not made as much use of SWCT as we might have done, mainly because a rugby squad with officials is too large a group, even at youth age-group level, for your available coaches. However, on the few occasions we have used SWCT we have been delighted with the service you provided. In particular, on the occasion of The Glasgow City Sevens tournament (not to be confused with the IRB world event at Scotstoun) the availability of your vehicles and volunteer drivers was invaluable, especially when we needed some flexibility to meet Munster at the airport and to transport their squad and the Samurai Scottish squad between their city centre hotel and our grounds. Both our sevens convener and the visitors were impressed with the SWCT service. Alan R Irons The Glasgow South Community Sports Trust I have used the service on many occasions for the Car Scheme and the Exercise Classes and the friendly approach puts me at ease right away. Having the individual attention throughout my visits is so reassuring. Betty McIver (91 years of age) As regards to the Car scheme, I have nothing but praise for the idea and the volunteers who so happily and friendly give their time to help those of us who are elderly, disabled and those like myself who have no family support in Glasgow. I am also a member of the Hoppa Shoppa service run by SWCT again a wonderful service and volunteers cannot do enough for us.
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Isabel Shaw (Pollok) Our organization works with many schools, nurseries, disabled groups, and other agencies within the South West areas of Glasgow. If you require any more information please contact SWCT office. Johann Lamont, MSP for Glasgow Pollok “Access to effective transport is vital to people’s participation in social life. When people become isolated from transport networks, particularly the elderly and infirm, it can be detrimental to their health and wellbeing. South West Community Transport has introduced a broad range of services to ensure that people can make simple yet essential journeys, whether they are visiting friends, going to the shops or attending hospital appointments. I have seen first-hand the positive impact these services have had in the local area and I commend the hard work and dedication of the whole team who continue to make this happen”. Margaret Urie Transport Co-ordinator South West Community Transport
TAGSA UIBHIST
WRITTEN SUBMISSION How Can Community Transport systems be improved? Can it be improved, where it works well? Community Transport, do we need a more strategic approach? Community Transport excels in the following: - Staff are very well trained to carry out the work that they do for Community Transport which will not be the same for some public transport providers. Training in Care, Moving and Handling, wheelchair, MIDAS, First Aid, CPC, to name but a few. Staff also attend awareness sessions, health issues, illness, wellbeing and this is all part of the Healthy Working Lives programmes. Tagsa Uibhist is the first organisation in the Western Isles to achieve Gold Award with Healthy Working Lives. Demand responsive transport:- The main priority would be to make sure that having Community Transport in area’s is a requirement by Scottish Government that all local Authorities have to adhere too (ring fencing). Considering the work that Community Transport carries out and that they meet the needs of our most vulnerable people in our society today. We provide a service to some of the most rural communities within our Islands, which are not covered by public transport. The saving that is achieved by using Community Transport by Local Authorities has to be recognised. Community transport has always been value for money for the Local Authority by providing a high valued and
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competitive rate service. (Ref: Value of Community Transport Economic Analysis carried out in Aug 2011 in conjunction with TAS) Are you seeing a growing demand for Community Transport provision? Due to an ageing population as people are living longer there will always be a requirement for this service. Western Isles information from Census 2011 – outputs Prospectus November 2012 - CNES The population continues to age but it varies across the different island areas. The percentage of people 65 and over by island area is as follows: South Uist 22% Benbecula 13% North Uist 27% The Outer Hebrides has the second highest number of pensioner households (93%) banded 0-5 in National Home Energy Rating (NHER). In 2010(Western Isles) the percentage of 45-64 yrs was 30% and the projected increase by 31% by 2020 and the projected increase by 27% by 2035 65-84yrs 2010 = 19% and the projected increase by 23% by 2020 and the projected increase by 30% by 2035 85+ yrs 2010 = 3% and the projected increase by 4% by 2020 and the projected increase by 7% by 2035. Do your local NHS bodies work closely with community transport providers? Very little contact considering the amount of assistance/work we give the NHS by bringing a lot of people to medical appointments which they may otherwise have missed. We are a preventative service by getting these people the help they need; otherwise it would be more cost to NHS if they had to be admitted to hospital because they had been unable to attend appointments. We attend a Healthcare Transport Group meeting every 3 months and it has not moved forward since the time we started to attend. We are asked each year for the same information and this is partly due to changes of personnel who have no idea what Community Transport is or how it is supporting the NHS without any funding input. Change Fund has set up a pilot project for hospital discharge only. Again this took some time to filter to the local hospitals that the service was available and it is not mentioned on letters sent out to patients that Community Transport service is available. This was brought up at the last Healthcare Transport group meeting and we hope that it was noted and that action will be taken.
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Tagsa Uibhist has done so far one presentation to our local surgery, to give them an update on what we provide. We hope to bring this to the local hospital and other surgeries but so far have found it difficult to arrange dates. How do you access non-emergency patient transport? More advertising by NHS that Community Transport is an alternative means of transport for people with appointments. More awareness by NHS staff that such a service is available and how they can contact them. We attend so many meeting but it still doesn’t seem to make any difference to moving this forward. Everyone thinks is great having such a service but they don’t advertise or push it forward so that it is adopted. Has your community transport group experienced funding difficulties? Tagsa Uibhist had been advised in October 2012 that the funding from CNES (local Authority) would be discontinued in the next budget. We fought a hard battle along with our service users and managed to secure funding for the next 2 years with a 2.5% cut each year. It is very difficult to get continuation funding for the service that we provide. You are required to re-invent yourself but that is difficult as studies/questionnaires etc show that continuation of the existing service is what is needed to best service the communities. After the two years we are not sure what the Local Authority will do. We are hoping to have more partnership working with the Council. It has to be taken into account that we have 8 shopping service routes, which without Community Transport the Council would have to put on public transport buses, that would have to be accessible for people with mobility and disabilities and to my knowledge the Council do not have fully accessible buses in the Islands. Another major difficulty is finding money to replace ageing vehicles. Do you think that Community Transport should fall within concessionary fare schemes? Yes because our service users wouldn’t have to pay for our service. Mostly all our clients are elderly. How sustainable are concessionary fare scheme due to the amount already been paid out which is considerably higher than had previously been expected. (Ref: Robert Black: Free public services need ‘revisiting’ – BBC news Scotland 5/10/12) Some letters from service users when our service was to be discontinued by the Council, sent to the Chief Executive:
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Lady in Hacklett, South Uist – I am writing to express my worry at the possible discontinuation for Community Transport here in Uist. This will mean we will no longer be able to turn to Tagsa Uibhist for the help so many of us badly need. Tagsa have helped me for the last 7 years to go to the doctor and nurses at the surgery, to the dentist, the optician, the dietician and very shortly to the hospital... I am very handicapped and not at all well and so Tagsa is also very helpful in getting me down my steps and in and out of the car with my zimmer. Last April my previous home help head to leave me and I just could not manage at all well on my own. So I contacted Tagsa and very quickly they found me an excellent home help who I am sure will stay with me for years. There are so many people here who are elderly and rely on Tagsa for transport as I do and also to be taken to the shops, bank and post office (How else could they get their pensions etc?). There are people I know who are taken to spend the day in 1 of our 2 care homes or else to have respite care there. Lady in Hosta, North Uist – I am rendered speechless on hearing the news that Tasga Uibhist transport was about to cease operating. As an octogenarian and one who is on medication for high blood pressure, Tagsa Uibhist is a lifeline for me. The office staff, bus drivers and escorts provide a superb service for senior citizens in their pleasant, thoughtful manner. What a blow it will be if we are deprived of this wonderful service! My home is a distance from the main road so the public bus service is not suitable for me. Lady in Balranald, North Uist – I started on the Tagsa bus four years ago. My house is a long distance from the main road, as the driver knows and the local bus is no use to me at the age of 90 years and with failing eye sight. I am registered blind. They look after me on the bus and with all the help and kindness of the escort and drivers taking me to the shops and even getting my shopping for me. They also make it possible for me to go to the bank and to the post office. Then they bring me safely home and help me with my shopping into the house. Evergreen, Berneray (Social group) – Living in Berneray we see the group not merely as a social gathering but as a way of looking after each other and fostering community spirit. The accessible transport service provided by Tagsa Uibhist, allows us to organise activities around the needs of our group members.
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Tagsa Uibhist also provide a reliable shopping bus service each week to a number of residence in Berneray as this is the only accessible transport available to them. Gentleman, Carinish, North Uist – Why do we need Tagsa? – we are mostly elderly and now have reduced physical health. Shopping Bus – The Tagsa staff call for us at our house. No need to stand outside in rain or wind. They make sure we are secured in the bus with the seat belts (Safety measure). The bus calls at the Balivanich post office and bank. Tagsa staff give assistance where required (remember the two Peggy’s are over 90). The bus also stops at a convenient “comfort” zone for those who require the Toilet. Shopping at MacLennan’s & Creagorry Co-op– the Tagsa staff assist all users, especially those with sight or other problems and also look out for the bargains. All this is over and above minimum requirements. At the check out the staff load the shopping into the bags and carry the bags into the bus. On the homeward journey the bus call at Tagsa – East Camp for a cup of tea. Tagsa service – “SECOND TO NONE” What if No Tagsa? – Users would be dependent on Taxis costing £20 round trip ..... bear in mind this is before anything is spend on shopping.......taxi drivers are more likely to wait in their cab thus giving no shopping help to users... TAGSA UIBHIST 11 April 2013
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THE SILVER CIRCLE
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
Dr L R Sanders Secretary to The Silver Circle March 2013
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Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee
9th Meeting, 2013 (Session 4), Wednesday, 17 April 2013
PE1236 Introduction
1. This is the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee’s fourth consideration of petition PE1236, first considered at its meeting on 12 December 2012, following it’s referral by the Public Petitions Committee (PPC):
Petition by Jill Fotheringham, calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to improve safety measures on the A90 by constructing a grade separated junction where the A937 crosses the A90 at Laurencekirk.
Background to PE1236
2. This petition is over four years old and has been considered extensively by the PPC both in session 3 and in the current session. Full details of previous PPC consideration, including written submissions and transcripts of the oral sessions, (which includes taking evidence from the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change in 2010 and evidence from the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure in 2011), can be found at the following link:
http://scottish.parliament.uk/gettinginvolved/petitions/PE01236 3. The PPC last considered this petition at its meeting on 27 November 2012 and agreed to refer the petition to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee (ICI) for further consideration of the issues raised in it, as part of the Committee’s remit.
The petition (from the original SPICe briefing February 2009) 4. The A90 is a trunk road connecting central Edinburgh with Fraserburgh, although the route between a point several miles to the north of the Forth Road Bridge and Perth is classified as the M90. The A90 used to run through the centre of Laurencekirk, until a bypass was constructed in the mid-1980s. There are three at-grade junctions connecting Laurencekirk with this stretch of the A90. This petition relates to the southernmost of these, which is a staggered crossroads with the A937, a road which links Laurencekirk with Montrose.
5. The PPC previously considered petition PE778, also submitted by Jill Campbell and took evidence from the petitioner in November 2004. The Committee closed the petition in March 2005 after receiving confirmation from the then Scottish Executive of a series of road safety improvements that would be made. These were implemented in 2005.
Current status of the petition and related studies
6. In December 2011, the Scottish Government published its Infrastructure Investment Plan 2011 including an intention to "dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness by 2025, with a view to completing dualling of the A96 and the dualled road network between all our cities by 2030".
7. Transport Scotland stated that it had no plans to construct a grade separated junction at Laurencekirk. If a proposed local housing development went ahead, it would expect the local authority and developers to bring forward plans and fund a grade separated junction.
8. In March 2012, the PPC wrote to Transport Scotland seeking information on the number of heavy vehicles and buses crossing the junction on a daily / weekly basis. The PPC also wrote to Aberdeenshire Council asking whether it intended to make representations to Transport Scotland to help progress an upgrade to the junction.
9. In its response, Transport Scotland advised that the number of heavy vehicles and buses using the junction had been addressed in an Accident Investigation and Improvement study in 2009. NESTRANS and Aberdeenshire Council informed the PPC that they believe that predictions for future traffic levels have been underestimated
10. NESTRANS provided a copy of their report on the grade separated study to the PPC in October 2012. Transport Scotland, in its response of November 2012, updated the PPC on the acceptance of the Aberdeenshire Council Local Development Plan, Main Issues Report - Laurencekirk Expansion - A90(T) Appraisal (March 2010)’ which was undertaken by Transport Scotland to assist Aberdeenshire Council in the preparation of their Local Development Plan and based on their Main Issues Report spatial strategy. The response also discussed the NESTRANS report and raised some issues around estimates on future traffic growth. It stated —
“Following the finalisation of the Nestrans report, Transport Scotland will meet with Nestrans and Aberdeenshire Council on 5 November to discuss the findings. “
11. The response also stated that ‘the junction between the A92 and the A937 at the north of Montrose, the signposted route to Aberdeen is via the A92 to the existing grade separated junction at Stonehaven. It suggested that the PPC may wish to seek views from Angus Council on whether more can be done to discourage the use of the A937 and hence reduce traffic at the A937/A90 junction at Laurencekirk. The petitioner made comments on the NESTRANS report and Transport Scotland’s response to it.
12. Throughout its consideration, numerous correspondence with Transport Scotland, NESTRANS, TACTRAN, Aberdeenshire Council and the petitioner has moved the issues forward however, despite this extensive
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correspondence, the PPC were unable to draw the issues to a satisfactory conclusion and the petition has remained open.
Consideration by the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee 13. This petition was referred by the PPC to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee on 27 November 2012.
14. The ICI considered the petition it’s meeting on 12 December 2012, and agreed to write to Transport Scotland seeking a response to a letter from the petitioner, dated 16 November 2012, to the PPC, and an update on Transport Scotland’s discussions with NESTRANS on the issues raised. The Committee also requested further information on the processes and procedures involved in assessing and acting upon safety issues at road junctions more generally, together with details of where responsibility for making decisions on such matters lies.
15. The Committee considered this petition again at its meeting on 27 February 2013, where it was agreed that the Committee would take oral evidence at a future session on matters raised in discussion. The Official record for this meeting can be found at the following link:
16. The Committee then took oral evidence at its meeting on 20 March 2013 from representatives of the community, Aberdeenshire and Angus Councils, the Regional Transport Partnership, and Transport Scotland. It was agreed that the Committee would consider the evidence heard at this meeting at a future meeting. The Official record for this meeting can be found at the following link:
17. At the meeting on 20 March Transport Scotland offered to write to the Committee with further evidence regarding the background to the provision of existing graded junctions on this transport corridor, and advising the committee that Transport Scotland, NESTRANS and Aberdeenshire Council will meet soon to continue discussions regarding Laurencekirk. The full response can be found at Annexe A.
18. The Petitioner had originally been invited to give evidence during the first panel of the evidence session on this petition, but was unable to attend. Instead they were able to make a written submission to the Committee, which can be found at Annexe B.
19. Supplementary written evidence was received from the community representative, Michael Robson, in advance of consideration of the evidence on 17 April. This is reproduced at Annexe C.
Next Steps The Committee will consider the evidence heard at the meeting on 20 March 2013 at its next meeting on 17 April 2013.
Recommended Action
20. The Committee is invited to:-
Consider the evidence heard at its meeting on 20 March, and decide what further action, if any, it wishes to take, or any recommendations it wishes to make.
Kelly Forbes Assistant Clerk to the Committee February 2013
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ANNEXE A
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ANNEXE B Written submission from the petitioner. I started a petition in 2004 following the death of Jamie Graham, a 21 year old serviceman from Fordoun. He was engaged and had just found out he was to be a father. He was killed when the car he was driving pulled out from the Montrose side of the south junction and was hit by a southbound vehicle in the inside lane of the a90. The accident happened around five o'clock at night, during rush hour and it was raining heavily. I believe that Jamie's vision of the car had been blinded momentarily by a vehicle on the slip lane turning towards Montrose, giving him the illusion that the carriageway was clear, this is a common mistake that many of us make but Jamie paid for this mistake with his life. I watched a family torn apart, completely destroyed by the loss of a son, brother, fiancé and father to be. His family never knew the comfort of his baby as his fiancée miscarried the week after he died. The first petition drew a total of almost 7000 signatures. I was overwhelmed by the response of people about the junction and the depth of feeling felt by those of us who are forced to cross there. Following the first petition, a 50mph speed limit was put in place in July 2005 at the junction, we were told by Nicoll Stephen, who was Transport minister, that this was a temporary measure until a grade separated junction could be put in place. I have, now, learned from reading the Nestrans report, October 2012, that Transport Scotland confirmed to them that an order came into force on 4th November 2005 revoking the temporary 50mph speed limit Order, this now permanent order is to remain in place for the foreseeable future. The temporary measure, we were assured of, became permanent just four months after being installed! Since that time we have gone through a second petition raising more than 8000 signatures, countless meetings and endless reports and each time we presented more arguments and evidence to Transport Scotland the higher they have built their brick wall. I will accept they have carried out a number of safety measures on the A90 at Laurencekirk, however what they have actually done is create a confusion of signage, the only real improvement to the town is the slipway leaving the North junction. What they constantly fail to address is the congestion and danger to crossing traffic at the south junction. I have to disagree with Mr Robson on one point. Over the years during the various meetings I have had with representatives from Transport Scotland and Bear Scotland, I have found them, frustratingly, uncooperative, they either have a firm belief that the junction is safe with the measures they have carried out or they recognise the need for a flyover and just don't want to foot the bill for it. They now have a community begging for a flyover, they have two councils and Nestrans telling them it should be done and yet they still say there is no need. Although from Laurencekirk, I now live in Montrose, I regularly commute to Aberdeen and I like hundreds of other commutors, would never, not now or in the future
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consider using the A92 or the A935 to join the A90. To go to Brechin adds 10 miles to my journey, to go via the coast road is 25 miles of single carriageway, driving through Three villages before reaching the A90 at Stonehaven. Using the A937 is the most direct and shortest route to the A90. I would never divert to some of the smaller junctions as they are hazardous in their own right. And yet, Transport Scotland decided the A937 was an "insignificant A road" even though it is the most direct and shortest route to join the A90 to and from Montrose. I have queued at the junction for up to 38 minutes which hardly justifies the road as being insignificant! I firmly believe that Transport Scotland knows this junction needs grade separation, but I believe they have done everything they can to avoid having to do it. Saying it should be developer funded when there is, now, no developer is ludicrous. We are talking about crossing a trunk road, which is their responsibility, there should be no argument, the buck stops with them. According to the October 2012 Nestrans report, it was noted that almost a third (32%) of recorded speeds in the southbound direction are in excess of the 50mph. That is alarming but of no surprise to those of us using the junction as we see this for ourselves. I believe it will take more fatalities before Transport Scotland will consider an upgrade. And I beg of them not to let this happen, not to let any more families go through what Jamie's family and the other families of victims of this junction have had to. 11 April 2013
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ANNEXE C From Michael Robson, Community Witness. 11th April 2013. On behalf of the community of Laurencekirk and district I should like to make the following observations relating to the evidence given by David Anderson of Transport Scotland.
1. Transport Scotland declares on its website that its primary role is to support economic development by reducing journey times and traffic congestion on trunk roads between Scotland’s major economic centres. Applying a reduced speed limit and ignoring the increase in traffic volume is a totally inadequate response to the situation at the A90/A937 junction.
2. The persistent use of aged data in respect to traffic volumes when Transport Scotland has up to date information seemed to be done in an effort to minimise the seriousness of the situation e.g. Mr Anderson quoted a figure of 18,000 in each direction with 3000 crossing whereas the more recently quoted figure (4 years old) is 18,000 daily on the A90 with 5,500 crossing. The differences in crossing ratios should be noted, 1:4 four years ago cf 1:12 with Mr Anderson’s older figure.
3. The persistent misinformation in regard to the situation with planning gain funding. There is no likelihood of any development at the southern junction which is large enough to fund a graded junction. In any case there is no liability on developers to fund the correction of an existing problem. To continue this argument is totally disingenuous on the part of Mr Anderson.
4. The community are very disappointed to observe that Transport Scotland , despite its aim to support the Health and Wellbeing t of travellers, continue to ignore the social and mental impact of coping with this dangerous junction on a daily basis. For action to depend entirely on further human sacrifice may have suited road engineers of the Roman Empire but is hardly a twenty first century approach to the problem.
5. Transport Scotland persistently fails to explain the due processes of risk assessments other than the crude measurements of deaths and injuries reported by the police. No assessments of speeding vehicles or of near misses are mentioned. Likewise no impact of adverse weather conditions and poor visibility are considered. We feel the current standard should be reviewed and compared to those already established for high risk environments e.g. those adopted by the oil and gas industries.
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6. We agree with the suggestion by committee members that the engagement process between Transport Scotland, local authorities and community groups should be triggered early in the assessment process.
7. In relation to the impact of trunk road crossings on local communities we feel that the current focus on an area 100m either side of the junction is inadequate. We suggest that the impact of increased traffic on local traffic should be included. This should cover increases in all road accidents on other local crossings of the trunk road as well as the increases associated with increased traffic on the local road network. All of these may be affected by problems at a single trunk route junction.
8. Transport Scotland recognises in its policy statement that most of the economic development in the near future will be on the eastern side of Scotland. How does this match the lack of improvements agreed for the A90?
9. We were unable to establish, at the meeting, how Transport Scotland prioritises the various planned improvements. We are under the impression that the committee also remain unclear how Transport Scotland decides which improvements reach their priority list.
10. We were encouraged that the committee acknowledged the strengths of the arguments in favour of improvements at the A90/A937 junction. We hope that they are able to support recommendations for prompt action in respect of the planned improvements.
11. We thank the committee for taking time to consider the implications of PE 1236 and look forward to hearing their findings.
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Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee
9th Meeting, 2013 (Session 4), Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Subordinate legislation Procedure
1. Negative instruments are instruments that are “subject to annulment” by resolution of the Parliament for a period of 40 days after they are laid. All negative instruments are considered by the Subordinate Legislation Committee (on various technical grounds) and by the relevant lead committee (on policy grounds). Under Rule 10.4, any member (whether or not a member of the lead committee) may, within the 40-day period, lodge a motion for consideration by the lead committee recommending annulment of the instrument. If the motion is agreed to, the Parliamentary Bureau must then lodge a motion to annul the instrument for consideration by the Parliament.
2. If that is also agreed to, Scottish Ministers must revoke the instrument. Each negative instrument appears on a committee agenda at the first opportunity after the Subordinate Legislation Committee has reported on it. This means that, if questions are asked or concerns raised, consideration of the instrument can usually be continued to a later meeting to allow correspondence to be entered into or a Minister or officials invited to give evidence. In other cases, the Committee may be content simply to note the instrument and agree to make no recommendation on it. The Committee will consider the following instruments: Title of Instruments Tenant Information Packs (Assured Tenancies) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2013 SSI 2013/90 The Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (Fife Council) Designation Order 2013 SSI 2013/93 The Parking Attendants (Wearing of Uniforms) (Fife Council Parking Area) Regulations 2013 SSI 2013/94 The Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (Fife Council) Regulations 2013 SSI 2013/95 Type of Instruments
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Negative
Laid Dates SSI 2013/90: 6 March 2013 SSI 2013/93: 14 March 2013 SSI 2013/94: 14 March 2013 SSI 2013/95: 14 March 2013 Minister to attend the meeting No SSI drawn to the Parliament’s attention by Subordinate Legislation Committee SSI 2013/90 No SSI 2013/93 No SSI 2013/94 No SSI 2013/95 No Reporting deadlines SSI 2013/90: 22 April 2013 SSI 2013/93: 6 May 2013 SSI 2013/94: 6 May 2013 SSI 2013/95: 6 May 2013 Tenant Information Packs (Assured Tenancies) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2013 SSI 2013/90 Purpose 3. This Order amends the Schedule contained in the Tenant Information Packs (Assured Tenancies)(Scotland) Order 2013. The Schedule provides a Tenant Information Pack that persons who are to be landlords under assured tenancies are to provide to persons who are to be their tenants. Subordinate Legislation Committee
4. At its meeting on 19 March 2013, the Subordinate Legislation Committee considered the instrument and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit.
5. A copy of the SSI and the accompanying documents are included with the papers.
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The Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (Fife Council) Designation Order 2013 SSI 2013/93
Purpose 6. This Order extends to Fife Council, arrangements for enforcing parking controls already available in London and certain other areas in England and in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and Kinross, Aberdeen, Dundee, South Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire. A similar Order has been laid before the Scottish Parliament in relation to East Renfrewshire Council, and is due to come into force on 2nd April 2013. Subordinate Legislation Committee
7. At its meeting on 26 March 2013, the Subordinate Legislation Committee considered the instrument and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit.
8. A copy of the SSI and the accompanying documents are included with the papers. The Parking Attendants (Wearing of Uniforms) (Fife Council Parking Area) Regulations 2013 SSI 2013/94
Purpose 9. These Regulations prescribe functions during the exercise of which, a parking attendant must wear such uniform as the Scottish Ministers may determine 7 (regulation 2). The requirement to wear a uniform is contained in section 63A (4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. Section 63A itself applies to Greater London only but by virtue of the Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (East Renfrewshire Council) Designation Order 2013 that section is modified so as to apply to the parking area designated by that Order. Accordingly, parking attendants exercising the prescribed functions within that parking area are required to wear a uniform when doing so. Subordinate Legislation Committee
10. At its meeting on 26 March 2013, the Subordinate Legislation Committee considered the instrument and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit.
11. A copy of the SSI and the accompanying documents are included with the papers. The Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (Fife Council) Regulations 2013 SSI 2013/95 Purpose
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12. These Regulations prescribe the procedure to be followed in relation to appeals before parking adjudicators against decisions of the parking authority under a decriminalised parking regime in Fife local government area (regulations 3-16). The parking adjudicators are appointed under section 73 of the Road Traffic Act 1991 (“the 1991 Act”). That section, along with other provisions of that Act relating to the decriminalisation of certain parking offences, is applied with modifications, where appropriate, to the parking area established by the Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (Fife Council) Designation Order 2013. Subordinate Legislation Committee
13. At its meeting on 26 March 2013, the Subordinate Legislation Committee considered the instrument and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit.
14. A copy of the SSI and the accompanying documents are included with the papers. Recommendation
15. The Committee is invited to consider any issues that it wishes to raise on these instruments. Steve Farrell Clerk to the Committee April 2013
