Contact: Paul Carey-Kent, ext 7525

1 Summary

1.1 This cross cutting review of transport pulls together the conclusions from the three completed reviews of transport in the areas of Education, Social Services and Environment. Issues which require cross departmental consideration are picked up leading both to some immediate actions and to the setting up of arrangements to improve the future co-ordination of transport policy. Given the complexity of both the service and the arrangements for delivering it across the public section as a whole, this is not an area amenable to overall quick fixes and as result the recommendations aim in part to set up the mechanisms for improvements over the next two to three years.

2 The Service under Review

2.1 The scope for the cross cutting passenger transport review was agreed at the panel meeting on 12 July 2000 (attached as appendix 2). This identified the main areas of service as:

	£'m
Home to school transport direct costs	16.0
Home to school transport management costs	0.5
Bus service subsidies	4.8
Community transport and related initiatives	1.4
Other public transport costs (including publicity)	0.2
County Surveyor's staffing for policy development	0.4
Social Services transport costs	1.8
Total	25.1

3 The Review Process

3.1 This review has been carried out against the background of the three constituent Passenger Transport Best Value Reviews (the final improvement plans from which are attached as appendices 3, 4 and 5). Not only was there officer co-ordination whereby the leaders of each of these three reviews took part in the cross cutting review, but there was also a meeting of the Chairmen of the Best Value Review Panels undertaking each of the three studies in order to ensure that there was political input to identify the key cross cutting issues. These processes led at the panel meeting on 28 September 2000 to the identification of the three main areas on which to concentrate:

· policy and funding

· organisation and provision

· communication.

3.2 This led in turn to three workshops on these topics during January 2001. These involved Councillors, County Council officers (including a staff representative), an external transport consultant and external stakeholders from health and a district council. These workshops enabled the review to bring together:

· information from other authorities

· issues from the three separate passenger transport studies

· a policy making perspective and

· external input

in order to examine policy options in an informal brain storming setting.

3.3 This led to a report on policy options which was presented to the panel on 23 February 2001. This contained:

· 19 policy options from discussion by members of which 18 were accepted (attached as Appendix 6 is the report on policy options amended for the comments made by members during that meeting)

· commissioning of consultancy work to prepare summary evidence from across the country of experience in different models for organising transport provision. This will be tabled at the meeting. Its main import is to support the policy options chosen by members, in particular the preference not to externalise completely the organisation of passenger transport.

One short term action agreed in February was the production of a map of total transport provision in a sample area of the county in order both to inform members and to provide an illustration of the type of arrangements which it is hoped to improve through improved co-ordination arrangements. This map will be available for members to examine at the meeting. The primary means of achieving such streamlining will be the two studies to establish patterns of transport and seek to rationalise them in Test Valley and Hart/Rushmoor, together with the better use of area forums. These wide ranging initiatives are complemented by the piloting of improved arrangements for internal co-ordination within the County Council.

3.4 Following on from the Options Report, an improvement plan is now attached as Appendix 1 to this report for members' comments and approval.

4 Member input

4.1 Members have had input at three levels:

· indirectly through their involvement, separately documented, in the individual passenger transport reviews

· in bringing together issues from across the three reviews, principally through the meeting of relevant chairman and

· through involvement in the cross cutting review both through informal workshops and through discussion of the papers brought to this panel.

Members have commented favourably on these processes, which have led to wide-ranging debates.

5 Lessons Learned

5.1 This has been the first cross cutting review carried out by the County Council and it is encouraging that clear ways forward have been identified: the action plan contains significant proposals which might well not have come forward without the mechanism of the cross cutting review. Having said that:

· it has not been possible to carry out much specific research for this review, given that there was no dedicated officer time available. Consequently, it has been a question of pulling together existing data from the three constituent areas and employing an external consultant. This should, however, be less of an issue where moving `direct' to a cross cutting review as will happen from Year Two's programme onwards.

· the major policy issues involved are not of a type which can readily be `solved' - eg the balance between social exclusion and environmental factors in deciding what transport to support. Might it be, for example, that high intensity investment might be made in selected areas in order to see how this helps with these issues? The implementation of the LRT scheme in South Hampshire would provide one - but with an investment of over £200m, hardly one can readily be duplicated. Consequently the review has had to concentrate to some extent on setting up improved mechanisms through which such difficult decisions can be considered in the future.

· it is not easy to gather performance data for a cross cutting review, especially in an area where it is very difficult to assess outcomes. This is reflected in the gaps at present in the action plan under the performance indicator columns.

6 Conclusions

It is hoped that this cross cutting review has set up the mechanisms through which it will be possible to take forward approaches which might get people out of their cars and onto other forms of transport. However, to actually deliver on this requires more budget prioritisation, evidence of what does and does not work and pilots of the impact of possible approaches than could be achieved within the time scales of a Best Value Review. The challenge will be to ensure that momentum is maintained and creative approaches continue to be put forward, rather than the County slipping back into running relatively discrete passenger transport activities which are unlikely in themselves to maximise the potential to address the underlying issues of congestion and social exclusion in the most effective way. That will require concerted efforts from both officers and members over the next two years.

7 Summary Recommendations

The main recommendations, as reflected in the improvement plan, are as follows:

· establishing patterns of transport in sample urban and rural areas in order to take action to improve integration across a wide range of partners.

· integrating Social Services transport with Environment/Education arrangements

· making best use of the bus strategy currently being developed

· potentially more flexible approaches to home to school transport

· considering experimenting with a County Council bus fleet in order to increase competition in the market

· ensuring that modernised member arrangements allow transport to be considered in a cross cutting way

· improving communication, in particular the role of parish councils.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report. N.B. the list excludes:

1 Published works

2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act,

NONE

Appendices:

1. Improvement Plan

2. Scoping Report

3. Final Improvement Plan: Environment Grouping

4. Final Improvement Plan: Home to School Transport

5. Final Improvement Plan: Social Services

6. Policy Options - cross-cutting Issues