Concessionary travel

Robert Eriksohn made this Freedom of Information request to Winchester City Council

The request was successful.

From: Robert Eriksohn

30 January 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Firstly I would like to thank your colleagues for replying to my
previous FOI request last year.

Pursuant to my last request dated 21st October 2008, has Winchester
city council considered extending the statutory criteria for the
National Concessionary Travel Scheme to include people registered
as disabled with social services on the grounds of being a mental
health user or survivor, either when planning for the schemes
implementation, since or is WCC planning to consider this in the
future?

Additionally it would seem that Winchester along with other
district authorities in Hampshire delegated their 'statutory duty'
as a 'Travel Concession Authority' for the purpose of the
'Transport Act 2000' to Hampshire County Council to enable the
administration of a county wide concessionary fares scheme, but
resumed individual responsibility for the this for the purposes of
'The Concessionary Bus Travel Act 2007.' Could you explain why the
statutory duty was delegated for the purposes of 'the 2000 Act' and
why the responsibility returned to individual authorities for the
'2007 Act.

I look forward to your continued assistance.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Eriksohn

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Winchester City Council

30 January 2009

I am out of the office until Monday 2nd February 2009. If your query is
urgent, please forward it to Katherine Pryor [email address].

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From: Robert Eriksohn

30 January 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Would it be possible to include in my request the following:

If an extention of the scheme to inclued those with a mental health
issue has/ was considerd what were/ are the reasons for not
extending the scheme as said?

Yours sincerely,

Robert Eriksohn

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Winchester City Council

5 February 2009

Dear Mr Eriksohn

Thank you for your email. I have sent your request to the relevant
officer and you should receive a reply within 20 working days from the
30th January. Apologies for the time taken to reply to you.

Regards

Ellie Hogston
Democratic and Member Services Officer
Winchester City Council
Tel: 01962 848155

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Winchester City Council

13 February 2009

Mr. Eriksohn, further to you request under the freedom of information act
please find below the answers to your questions.

Winchester City Council's Cabinet decided to implement the Governments
Statutory Concession Scheme and therefore not to extend the scheme in the
District to registered disabled people other than those contained and
specified in the Statutory Scheme. The only extension to the Statutory
Scheme in Winchester District is in respect of the time in which the
concessions begin in the morning.

These decisions were made on financial grounds. The City Council is
subsidising the scheme to a large extent and the costs of concessionary
travel to the authority have increased dramatically in the last 4 years
from around £450,000 to £1.4million per annum.

Andy Hickman

Head of Access and Infrastructure

Winchester City Council

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From: Robert Eriksohn

13 February 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for you reply.

Would it possible to see the relevent cabinet report?

Could youplease explain why proior to the introduction of the
national concession there was the county wide 'FarePass' scheme and
why this is no longer the case as requested in my request?

Yours sincerely,

Robert Eriksohn

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Winchester City Council

13 February 2009

Attachment Cabinet Report Concessionary Travel.doc
90K Download View as HTML

Robert, committee paper attached.

We decided to join the Hampshire fare-pass scheme to ensure that we received the Hampshire wide consultancy advice through MCL. We could not have afforded that otherwise and thus would have struggled to deal with Bus operators appeals. This also gives us he benefits of joint working and shared knowledge across the authorities. Pooling admin costs also helps reduce overall costs.

Hope this helps.
Andy

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From: Robert Eriksohn

13 February 2009

Dear Andy

Thanks,

Why does the Fare Pass scheme not exist anymore given the benifits?

Regards

Robert Eriksohn

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Winchester City Council

13 February 2009

Robert, we still run it in relation to the administration of
concessionary travel across Hampshire but the National Scheme
introduction removed the need to have it otherwise.

Andy

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From: Robert Eriksohn

13 February 2009

Sorry, should have read the report first.

I am unclear on the point of discretionary elements.
Before the national scheme 'Fare Pass' holders were able obtain
additional concessions not available in there district i.e. use on
the Hythe ferry.

These elements are no longer available to people not resident in
the relevant district - in this case NFDC. Why is this the case if
the districts apart from Fareham still operate a 'county wide
scheme,' in other words what has changed?

I think this is what lead me to assume that the count scheme no
longer existed.

Regards

Robert

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Winchester City Council

13 February 2009

Robert, the County wide scheme was replaced by the National Scheme so
yes some benefits were lost. The only aspect of the countywide scheme
that remains is purely some of the admin and shared consultancy
resource.

Andy

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