Opposition councillors have asked for an investigation into their concerns that party politics has influenced home-to-school transport policy appeal decisions.
Three Green Party councillors on North Yorkshire Council have asked the authority’s monitoring officer to establish whether rules have been broken.
The appeals panels are being held for parents who have challenged the Conservative-controlled council’s decision to refuse free school transport following a change in the rules, which means only children travelling to their nearest school are eligible.
The panels are meant to make decisions based on the council’s policies and the evidence provided by parents.
But Councillor Arnold Warneken said he unearthed an email suggesting decisions were being made along “party lines” when he submitted a Freedom of Information request.
His request for monitoring officer Barry Khan to investigate has the support of Green Party colleagues, Andy Brown and David Noland.
Cllr Warneken said:
“I felt a moral obligation to raise concerns with the monitoring officer.
“I have asked him to scrutinise this email, investigate whether political influence has affected decision-making, and to reconfirm that all appeals are conducted in a completely non-partisan way.
“Until this has been investigated, it is not appropriate to share more details.”
Cllr Warneken said he had supported seven families through the appeals process.
He added:
“I have witnessed first-hand how very upsetting the appeal process is for families.
“We must be sure that people who have to go through this ordeal are being listened to without bias, and that decisions are made fairly.”
Cllr Noland added:
“The councillors on the appeal panel vote to decide who gets a place on the bus. So it’s incredibly important that they do the right thing for the child, based on the evidence.
“If there’s even the faintest risk of other forces at play, we must call it out for scrutiny. It’s not a nice thing to do, to question a colleague’s partiality, but it’s the right thing to do.”
In response, Councillor Gareth Dadd, deputy leader of the council, said the appeals panels considered cases on their merits and were formed in line with political proportionality, with members on the panels from different political groups.
He added:
“More importantly, I’m very disappointed that the Greens have gone public with the concerns they have over a standards issue without allowing the standards process to take its course.
“It casts some doubt over the decency of every member of the authority. The Greens are using this as a fig leaf to try and cause as much damage as they can to a policy, which they claim to not support.”
The new home-to-transport rules started to take effect last month.
They were introduced in a bid to reduce the cost of school transport, which has grown to more than £50m a year.
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