Agenda and minutes

Councillor Steele welcomed everyone to the meeting and referred to the background to the Children’s Commissioner Take-Over Challenge.

Tom Jackson (Youth Cabinet) assumed the Chair.

Ashley Gregory (Youth Cabinet) gave the following powerpoint presentation:-

What is Rotherham Youth Cabinet

-          Rotherham Youth Cabinet is a group of motivated and enthusiastic young people aged 11 to 18 from across Rotherham, who are active in ensuring young people have a Voice.  We do this in order to ensure young people have a positive impact throughout our communities.

What Do We Do?

-          We help young people in Rotherham to have a Voice, be listened to and influence decisions about local services and issues

-          We find out about the concerns which  young people tell us about and create campaigns to work on these

Manifesto Aims 2016-2017

-          To help young people to feel confident with their own appearance and raise awareness of the effects and impact of negative body image

-          To widen youth voice participation to help all young people know how to have a Voice, what opportunities for participation are available and encourage them to have equal opportunity to be involved in Youth Voice initiatives

-          To work with Rotherham Looked After Children’s Council and other young people across the Borough to create a proud and positive image of Rotherham

-          To work with South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive and local bus companies around issues regarding public transport for young people

-          To raise awareness of Water Safety amongst children and young people to make them aware of the dangers of open water and how they can stay safe

Previous Transport Work (Manifesto 2015-1)

-          To work with South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive and local bus companies around issues regarding public transport for young people with a particular focus on bus passes for 16 to 18 year olds

Toni Paxford, Youth Cabinet, presented the ‘Get in Gear: Accessibility of Public Transport for Young People” report.

For the past 3 years transport has been part of the Make Your Mark ballot which was the largest youth consultation in Europe.  In 2016 public transport was the top issue for young people for Yorkshire and Humber so the Rotherham Youth Cabinet had felt it needed to review the situation in Rotherham and surrounding areas.

In 2013 the Youth Cabinet had raised issues around toilets, behaviours, staff, services and the Interchange building itself.  Most of the issues had been addressed but it was felt that further research was in order to ensure that the issues were still being addressed and if any new concerns had been highlighted:-

Bus Passes and Pricing

-          11-16 Megatravel passes – allowed 16 year olds and under to use public transport at any time at a child fare.  The passes were free and accepted by all operators.  Valid up until 31^st July of the year the young person turned 16 unless their birthday was in the month of August and therefore valid until the day before their 16^th birthday

-          16-18 student passes – free of charge and accepted by all operators to entitle young people 16-18 a child fare.  Available if in full-time education and the household paid Council Tax to a South Yorkshire local authority.  Also expired on 31^st July as above.

-          Mi Card – free card for under 18’s in Barnsley and automatically renewed after the 16^th birthday and expired the day before the 18^th birthday.  Allows travel at 60p for those in Barnsley, 80p anywhere else as well as half fare on all train journeys within South Yorkshire.

-          Zero fare passes – free and valid for use during the academic year until 7.00 p.m.  A young person qualified for the pass if they were in full-time education and had to travel more than 3 miles to get to school.

-          All the passes expired prior to the summer holidays unless the young person’s birthday fell in that period.

-          The weekly First Bus pass was praised as it allowed use of any bus or tram in South Yorkshire by young people.

-          It was also noted that young people taking part in the National Citizen Scheme (NCS) received free and discounted travel with the First bus company.  It was believed this would help with the financial implications for the 2 week social action project within the program, however, other groups in the area felt that this was unfair as there were social action projects which also benefitted the community and met during the holidays.  This meant those young people would have to pay full fare in order to commute to and from their specific groups.

Times

-          Consultation forums had been held in Dinnington and Barnsley the outcomes of which were not known as yet. 

-          A survey conducted by SYPTE in 2014 found that only  ...  view the full minutes text for item 103.

Members of the Youth Cabinet asked the following questions relating to the provision of public transport.  Responses were provided to the questions by each of the transport providers present at the meeting:-

(1)  Why should young people have to pay adult fare during the summer weeks?  Could the expiry date be at the end of the holidays allowing young people to use public transport services at a more affordable rate?

Response (First Group)  This was something that had been pushed for within SYPTE for a couple of years.  First Bus had accepted passes up until the end of September through the last 2 years and work was taking place with the PTE who issued the passes.  There were concessionary funding issues i.e. if there was a disproportionate growth in passengers it would cost the local authority money that had not been budgeted for.  However, First had agreed to waive any increased concession as was felt an important time for young people particularly between leaving school and starting college.

Response (TM Travel)  It was a national funding issue around concessionary fares.  One angle would be to address it through the Safer Roads Partnership as the demographic group most likely to be involved in road accidents was young people aged up to 25.  A ticket promotion had been run last summer for young people.  It was hoped to look at something similar this year.

Response (Supertram)  There was some inconsistency between operators.  Supertram currently only operated in Sheffield but there was dialogue between operators and SYPTE with regard to providing a clearer and more transparent ticket offer over the summer holidays.

Response (Northern Rail)  Put pressure on your elected bodies to support you with the discounted travel.  It was a very limiting factor for young people aged 16-24 when trying to get access to employment opportunity with such high adults fares to pay for the  majority of time.

Response (SYPTE)  There was awareness of the issue.  It was proposed to discuss with the Chair and the Youth Councils around South Yorkshire with regard to establishing a Youth User Group where representatives of the PTE would be present and engage in direct conversation. 

(1a) Was it something that the First Group and TM Travel were planning to do again in the summer and if so how would they let the young people know? 

Response (First Group) It was not announced due to the fact that it was a PTE pass and did not want to cause confusion with other operators if they were not accepting them.  However, if a young person had boarded a First bus they would not be challenged for the pass.  It was hoped to discuss with the PTE and other operators and get a wider announcement out and do it on a more formal basis this year.

With regard to the National Citizen Scheme, First had given 2 weeks free travel to 2,000 NCS students in the summer who had enrolled on the NCS programme.  That was on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 104.

The Chair reported that he had met with Clare Cocken (SYPTE) and discussed the plans with the PTE to meet with young people from South Yorkshire to discuss transport, what changes could be made, what was good, what not, and making it South Yorkshire wide.

Clare reported that discussions had started with Rotherham about the Youth User Group because of the report the Youth Cabinet had produced.  However, since then she had met with Sheffield and also had meetings planned with Barnsley and Doncaster.  It was hoped that the first meeting of the User Group would take place around Easter and it was important that it was useful for young people. 

All the operators were very committed to the Group and willing to take part.

In closing the meeting, Councillor Steele thanked the Youth Cabinet Members, Elected Members and officers of each organisation for their participation in the meeting and contributions to the debate.