This petition calls for East Sussex County Council to reconsider the Home to Schools contact awarded to 24/7Ltd, an Essex based service provider. The current tender is serviced by local taxi and private hire companies who’s drivers are regular and consistent to each child and have been in some cases for 8 years. Making a change to this new provider will have a drastic affect on the child’s life and education. It will also mean local drivers will lose a large chunk of their income in such hard times, after the last 18 months due too the covid pandemic.
Under Taxi/Private Hire licensing conditions the drivers will be unable to work for this new provider as they cant hold licenses for different licensing authorities. The new drivers will be part time drivers employed for an hourly wage and not used to dealing with the complications that arise when transporting children with very complex needs and disabilities and will have no time to be trained correctly, also will there even be enough time to gain the correct licences needed to drive these licensed vehicles and any training needed. There will also be no backup available as the company is based in Essex so a good couple of hours away should there be a breakdown/illness or even an accident. Currently if a driver is unable to do his school run, a replacement can immediately be found to ensure no loss of service to the family. This seems to be a cost cutting exercise, everything including wages fuel insurance ect is going up but ESCC want to maintain a high level of service for a fraction of the money putting profit into an already multi million pound company. Thank you for taking the time to read.
This ePetition ran from 22/07/2021 to 02/12/2021 and has now finished.
2 people signed this ePetition.