The row surrounding ongoing payments for home-to-school contracts in Scotland has continued after a group of 23 operators wrote to North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) on 3 June asking it to re-examine its policy surrounding remuneration while educational establishments are closed.
On 23 April, NLC advised operators via Strathclyde Partnership for Transport – which issues contracts on its behalf – that they would be paid 75% of the value of those contracts until 24 June “on the condition that [they] have not accessed alternate national funding programmes.”
Home-to-school payments policy is ‘totally unjust’
The operators say that “totally unjust” stipulation realistically prevents them from using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS).
If accepted, the condition would leave most of them to cover wage payments in their entirety from that 75% of the value of home-to-school contracts, despite that workstream representing a minority part of their overall income.
As a result, it will force them to make staff redundant, their letter to the council states. Other sources of income have collapsed during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, they add.
Since its communication of 23 April, NLC has subsequently said that where operators’ staff are subject to CJRS, it will consider what alternative support can be provided. Some operators have received 33% of contract payments for April based on that position. NLC notes that certain LAs pay nothing when staff are subject to CJRS.
The group of operators are now lobbying NCL to pay 75% of contract values while also allowing staff to be subject to CJRS, although they note that such a percentage is lower than that being paid by some other Scottish LAs.
A proforma sent by NLC on 29 April asks operators to confirm whether monies paid for home-to-school contracts will be “used as intended, i.e. to employ and pay drivers and staff in full.” It also includes space where details of other grant funding streams can be added.
The operators allege that the stipulation of not subjecting staff to CJRS in return for 75% payments to be made was not issued until CJRS was established and by which time some of them had utilised it.
They also claim that NLC has misinterpreted a passage in Scottish Procurement Policy Note (SPPN) 5/20. It states that suppliers are not entitled to combine a claim for continued payments “with any other COVID-19 related relief, grant, intervention or other measure which results in the supplier receiving more than one benefit/relief for the same underlying cash flow issue.”
The operators say that as they would ordinarily generate most revenue from streams other than home-to-school work, payment of 75% of contracts’ value while they are also claiming through CJRS does not represent a conflict with the message laid down in SPPN 05/20.
Politicians join the fray on home-to-school payments row
One of the businesses involved has taken up the matter with Marion Fellows, MP for Motherwell and Wishaw.
Ms Fellows has written to NLC, saying that she finds its position “difficult to understand” and noting that CJRS funding “merely supports the payment of wages to staff that have been furloughed. It does not cover the costs of maintaining a business and the continued operation of transport.”
Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth has raise also raised the matter of continuing payments with NLC. In its reply to Mr Hepburn, NLC says that it is “unable to provide any further financial assistance” above the 33% offered to operators of home-to-school contracts that have subjected staff to CJRS.
If North Lanarkshire Council does not change its stance on home-to-school transport payments, it “will without doubt cause more coach operators in the area to fail more quickly than elsewhere in the country,” the operators’ letter to the council adds.
