Agenda item

Report of Corporate Director of People

Claire Moores, School Swimming and Whynott Transport Manager, presented the report, and stated the following:

a)  Nottingham City Councils’ Why Nott? Transport, based in the Curriculum and Enrichment Education Services, had a history of over 10 years of successfully supporting schools and academies to access educational visits, school swimming and ice skating lessons, and allows schools to secure the best price for their journey through a competitive process within a pool of pre-approved transport providers.

b)  The benefits of this to children and young people are that they can:

·  travel on transport that meets a pre-approved standard with regards safety and quality and is appropriate for any SEND requirements;

·  access a range of inclusive learning outside the classroom activities that enhance their personal development, physical and mental health and life chances.

c)  The benefits of this to schools/academies are that they can:

·  evidence they have exercised due diligence;

·  secure best value through a competitive process;

·  share vehicles with other schools to bring the costs down;

·  receive support on a scale greater that the school alone should there be issues with quality;

·  reduce the planning burden of providing inclusive learning outside the classroom experiences that contribute towards meeting CMO, National Curriculum and OFSTED Personal Development standards.

 d)  The benefits to Nottingham City Council are that this service:

·  is income generating;

·  facilitates a degree of control over the costs and quality of school swimming, ice skating and adventurous activity transport (which directly affects the booking volumes for at Leisure Centres, NIC and NCC’s Adventure Centres);

·  supports the inclusion of those with SEND in these activities;

·  supports compliance with the Council’s statutory duties with regards Health and Safety in maintained schools;

·  supports maintained schools in offering an inclusive, broad and balanced curriculum that meets the requirements of the CMO, National Curriculum and OFSTED standards.

e)  Historically, the service had been delivered jointly by Passenger Transport (Woolsthorpe) and Education through interdepartmental charging. Whynott Transport services had now moved fully into the Education Division. This had achieved efficiencies by reducing administration and interdepartmental charging and streamlined service to customers.

f)  As part of the transformation of the service, the Education Division sought approval to continue to procure transport for school travel through the Why Nott? Transport Scheme via a range of Transport providers, as Whynott Transport works with the vast majority of operators in Nottingham through competitive pricing strategies, and approval would enable it to continue to do so.

g)  The approval would enable the establishment of a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for the contracting and supply of transportation from external transport operators.

During discussion, and in response to questions, Ms Moores stated the following:

h)  the service is a traded service, it has to be self-funding, with costs being covered by income;

i)  the condition, age etc of the vehicles provided is controlled by the DPS;

j)  due to the prohibitive cost of new, ‘green’ vehicles, it was unlikely that the Council’s target of being carbon-neutral by 2028 would be met by this service, although it was working with procurement colleagues to try to obtain better deals. there was also work being undertaken to link the Transport Strategy across all services provided by the Council;

k)  a major risk to the service currently was the increase in fuel prices, and it had already had to introduce a fuel surcharge.

Resolved to approve:

(1)  the continued procurement of transport services for Why Nott? Transport service to support schools and other Nottingham City Council Services to enable National Curriculum Learning, such as swimming lessons and education visits, in the most economical way;

(2)  transactions of up to £2,000,000 over a 4-year period via a DPS for the contracting and supply of transportation from external transport operators.

Reasons for recommendations

1.  The service is currently in place, well established (10+ years) and successful, both in terms of cost recovery and feedback/reputation.

2.  Authorisation is sought to continue to procure transportation on the basis that there is a proven track record of financial viability and that doing so contributes positively to children and young people’s learning, personal development and a number of elements of the Council Plan. Ensuring affordable best value, high quality safe, and transit by capturing and controlling 90% the available transport operators’ services in Nottingham. Whynott Transport offers a service by tender for education visits, and also combines the access to School Swimming Service to access swimming lessons for compulsory National Curriculum learning outcomes using local Leisure Centres.

3.  In order to comply with NCC financial procedures, to support a further four years of contracting with suppliers and enable a DPS contracting agreement for our operators which supports the Compliant Purchasing Agreements to raise purchase orders in the Fusion system.

Other options considered

1.  Not offer transport, leaving all schools to pursue their own best value. This option was rejected as, by not establishing a simple options for schools to access these services it will leave all schools to potentially face excessive inflated costs with differences in relation to location, SEND needs etc. -especially where pool lesson times are booked alongside premium scheduling for time’s conflicts for operators with home to school transportation).This increase in transport pricing could directly impact on the level of school swimming bookings and therefore the costs to the Council.

2.  Regulated pricing allows equal opportunity to all education establishments in Nottingham, if schools were to book independently and the Local Authority does not oversee the market hire, operators’ charges would be considerably different from a mileage and timings perspective, as costs would be per individual route (should operators independently govern charges to schools for such smaller bookings).

3.  The school swimming service in conjunction with Whynott transport is the national School Swimming Provider of the Year for 2021/2022 due to its unique approach of consolidation as a one stop shop through, bench marking, quality, ease of use and financial accessibility.

4.  Should the service be less accessible and coordinated, there is a risk of Children at risk if losing valuable of learning of life skills. The School Swimming Service and Whynott Transport provides a positive service budget.