New Zealand School Trustees Association s1

New Zealand School Trustees Association

Memorandum: 2006/3

School: «School» («School_ID»)

Chair: «Chairperson_first» «Chairperson_surname» via email «Chair_Email» (note that if nothing is shown above we do not have an email address for the chair)

Principal: «Principal_first» «Principal_surname» via email «Principal_email» (please advise any changes to above addresses)

From: Colin Davies, NZSTA, Manager Service Delivery ([email protected])

Date: 9 March 2006

Subject: School Transport – Bus Contracting Review Consultation Document

Purpose: This memo is relevant to boards who have a bus contract and outlines the start of a consultation process with the Ministry of Education on potential changes to the present system. Background: Last year the Ministry of Education commissioned a Working Paper on the history of and current approach to contracting school buses. This paper is intended to capture all of the existing knowledge and ensure the Ministry have a thorough understanding before identifying options for improving the system.

This review focuses on the commercial relationship between bus operators and the Ministry; it does not consider any of the policies related to eligibility, entitlement or direct resourcing.

In essence the discussion at this stage is centred around the degree to which schools might wish to be involved in how a provider is selected (ie to what degree should "being local" influence a decision and what type of service/s or relationship is valued by the school/cluster in considering a potential provider?).

Process: The Ministry have now commenced a consultation process with boards and bus operators. Through this process they aim to gather your thoughts on what you would like from the bus contracting system.

In the past week some 1300 boards will have recently received a letter from Kim Shannon (Senior Manager Resourcing Ministry of Education) seeking feedback on the contracting of bus services. This contained a deadline date for feedback of 24th March 2006. If you did not receive this letter it indicates your school is not involved in Ministry of Education resourcing of School Transport.

If you wish any further details please contact NZSTA President Chris Haines ([email protected]). The consultation document sent with that letter is basically a cut-down version of the Working Paper with some questions included to prompt stakeholders into thinking about school buses. The Ministry are not proposing any changes at this stage.

Timeline: We have raised our concerns through the Rural Education Reference Group with the Ministry on the very tight deadline (24 March 2006) for any consultation. Although the Ministry of Education had the documents ready on 24 February 2006, they were not posted until 6 March 2006. Clearly boards need more than the approx 2 weeks for consultation that they have been given.

1 The Ministry response has been that that they are working to a tight time line and are concerned that if there is an extension, which we asked for, at the front end it could affect consultation near the end of the process. Therefore they will not extend the date.

They have agreed that feedback coming in after this date will still be included in the material that will shape the debate around how a provider might be selected. Key questions included on the last page could be used to prompt discussion locally with your bus controller and your Board of Trustees and perhaps uncover further issues not yet acknowledged.

Please spend some time on this consultation document and as stated above, if you are unable to meet the 24 March deadline, carry on and send your response as soon as possible after that date.

Next stage: The Ministry have confirmed to us that there will be full consultation later if any changes are proposed, so boards needn't become too concerned if they aren't able to prioritise thinking about this issue right now, therefore they have stated that you don’t need to answer all questions.

Ultimately feedback will influence how the process might change prior to (any) new contract provisions for the 2007 contract round

Colin Davies