£1.89M SCHOOL BUS BAILOUT AS 47 CONTRACTS ARE HANDED BACK
Operators hit by rising fuel costs, repair bills and driver shortages
SCHOOL transport operators have been thrown a £1.89 million lifeline to help them cover soaring fuel costs and ensure pupils can still get to lessons.
Staffordshire County Council has set aside the one-off payment as firms struggle with overheads following hefty increases in petrol and diesel prices.
In the last four months alone, operators across the county have handed back 47 contracts. As well as bigger bills for maintenance, they have been hit by driver shortages.
Around 8,000 pupils in Staffordshire are entitled to free home-toschool travel, with the council commissioning 970 routes from bus and coach operators.
Young people attending special schools can also qualify for the assistance, which may include being taken by taxi or minibus. Altogether, the council is spending £18.3 million a year on school transport.
Now the authority has set aside up £1.89 million for the emergency payments for March and has adjusted the new contracts from April to reflect higher costs for travel companies. Contracts renewed from the start of this financial year have been designed so the price will reduce if the cost of fuel falls in future.
Councillor Jonathan Price, cabinet member for education, said: “Fuel costs have been increasing for some time, but the war in Ukraine, plus inflation, has seen a sharp rise in overheads for operators. Increasingly, we are seeing contracts being handed back and that leaves the council searching for new providers to take over a contract at short notice in a market with limited capacity.
“If we can support existing providers, they can continue maintaining services that ensure pupils get to school and we keep costs down in the long run.”
The councils says fuel costs have risen by almost one-fifth in the last six months, reaching around £1.76 per litre in April. Last week, the average price of diesel hit a new UK high at more than £1.80.
Away from school transport, the county council is also concerned about the viability of some commercial bus routes. Passenger numbers have still not returned to prepandemic levels.
With Government subsidies continuing until the end of September, the local authority has agreed to pay operators for concessionary bus pass use at the rate seen before covid. That means the funding is higher than the level of actual bus pass users.
The support is conditional on them showing they are promoting services for when subsidies end in the autumn.