Transport for vulnerable children and adults to be cut by £255,000 — but bosses say service will not suffer

Cash-strapped Bolton Council chiefs are to cut the number of vehicles used to transport adults to day care centre and children with special educational needs to their schools.

The move will lead to £255,000 of savings.

Under the plans one vehicle instead of two will pick up both groups — but children and adults will continue to be transported separately.

There will be no changes for children — but some adults may be picked up and dropped-off slightly later.

The council currently operates 42 vehicles which are divided between children and adults.

The routes are being reorganised and merged for the drop-offs and pick-ups so fewer vehicles are needed.

Council chiefs said that service users were consulted adding that they welcomed the fact that frontline day services were protected as savings were made.

Rachel Tanner, assistant director for care management and provider services, said: "There will be no impact on children with disabilities due to this change, and we have 110 adults with disabilities and a further 70 older adults who use the service.

"This is an innovative and unique model. We now have the technology to reorganise the routes and make the service more efficient. This means adults will not be travelling in rush hour, will spend less time travelling on the bus and have more time to get ready in the morning.

"We have had many positive comments from families and carers about the changes and we’d like to reassure user groups that we will continue to work with them to implement this successfully”

A staff consultation is underway about the changes to staff working arrangements.

The proposals are due to be implemented in September 2016.

Deputy council leader Cllr Linda Thomas said: “A review of our social needs transport is long overdue and merging the two routes makes perfect sense, but as the routing is such an intricate process it has taken some time to get right.

“We have carried out the review with our service users at the centre of considerations as we wanted the impact on them to be minimal.

"The biggest change is a 30 minute later pick-up time for our adult passengers. They won’t, however, have any less time at their day centre and we are working with a small number of families who this may impact on to ensure we meet their needs.

“The staffing of this service is also quite complex but we are working with trade unions and employees to ensure the process is completed as smoothly as possible.”

Bernie Gallagher, secretary of the Bolton-branch of Unison, said: "We are in discussions regarding the working patterns of some of our members.

"We are working through with management some of the implications for our members and to resolve those issues."