New Petitions

The mobility and access committee for Scotland—MACS—has a vision of a Scotland where anyone with a mobility problem that results from a physical, mental or sensory impairment has the information and opportunities to go when and where everyone else can. At present, transport poverty—the high cost of transport as a proportion of a low income—makes that vision a distant dream. The petition is about social justice, social inclusion and the practical measures that will be needed to make MACS's vision a reality.I have five points. First, since October 2002, elderly and disabled people who hold concessionary bus passes have enjoyed free bus travel and the Scottish Executive is providing millions of pounds to enable local authorities to pay for that. Secondly, that scheme is of no benefit to people who are physically unable to use buses and who often cannot walk to, or wheel themselves as far as, the nearest bus stop. In fact, those people's transport disadvantage has increased. In many areas, if people require door-to-door transport, they must use taxis or stay at home. Some not-for-profit dial-a-ride schemes exist in Scotland, such as the dial-a-journey scheme in the districts of Stirling, Falkirk and Clackmannan. Thirdly, many elderly and disabled people who are on low incomes suffer exclusion from the ordinary activities of life as a result of the cost of transport.Fourthly, DATAG has corresponded with the Scottish Executive about the social injustice of failing to provide subsidy for affordable and accessible transport for citizens who have severe mobility problems. That culminated in a statement in October 2002 by the then Deputy Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning that it is entirely up to local authorities to decide whether to provide a subsidy. As central Government imposed free concessionary travel on local authorities, that stance has an astonishing lack of logic. The stance is also discriminatory, because different principles are being applied to subsidy for people who can use buses and to subsidy for those who cannot. From the perspective of the disabled person wishing to travel, the result is a postcode lottery of service provision. In some areas, affordable and accessible transport is readily available; in other places, it does not exist.Finally, the Scottish Executive currently supports two research studies on the transport needs of disabled people; one is by Capability Scotland and the other is by Reid Howie Associates Ltd. I believe that the results will strengthen DATAG's case that all local authorities should be required to ensure that at least three subsidised return trips per week are available and that central Government should provide ring-fenced funds so that not-for-profit community transport schemes can be developed for that purpose.

No, we have not. We are a small campaigning group and we do not have the resources to do that, but you could easily find out the costs that are involved from the operators of the dial-a-journey scheme. I do not believe that there should be a limit on the number of journeys. I mentioned three journeys per week only because we in Dundee get one subsidised return trip by taxi per week, and the subsidy has not been changed since 1996 so inflation has eroded it. However, such journeys are expensive to provide and I did not want to ask for the moon. I ask for an improvement, and from our perspective, three journeys per week would be a big improvement.

The arrangements for access to transport are a bit different. My point is that there is no point in making public buildings and other buildings accessible if people cannot reach them because they do not have the transport to get there. People are excluded from educational opportunities, leisure opportunities, socialising and shopping because of the cost of transport. They might go out only once a week even though they would prefer to go out three or more times per week.

It certainly is. I do not know the details of the Angus scheme, but we have a vision of demand-responsive transport for disabled people being integrated with demand-responsive transport for anyone else who does not have access to a bus service—parts of Dundee have no bus service in the evenings and on Sundays. The two needs could be related and integrated—ideally, it would be good to have a non-segregated service for disabled people.

Yes.

Dundee City Council has never given priority to transport, but it is beginning to talk to us more actively. We have made two applications to the lottery for a dial-a-ride scheme, both of which failed. The council was interested in the most recent application—it thought that there was money coming into the area, so it was supportive. When the lottery bid failed, all interest from the council also failed.

No. Its interest and efforts are reviving because of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, but it talks about the long term. We have been campaigning for 12 years.

I understand why the idealistic point is being proposed. However, we are talking about people with severe mobility problems, who can travel only from door to door. I cannot envisage how public transport can be provided from door to door. Taxis are an exception, but they are prohibitively expensive for people on a low income.

We are focusing on local transport, which normally means buses. A dial-a-ride scheme would take people to a train station or bus station. At present, it is difficult for disabled people to access those places. I hope that that answers your question.

We are talking about ringing up and booking a journey for an individual. I cannot envisage how that would apply to trains, which must run to a timetable.

We have SIP money for a sheltered housing shoppers bus scheme, which uses commercially run buses that do school contracts in the mornings and afternoons. We use the gap between those times for our bus scheme. Although it is limited, it is a beginning. Each sheltered housing complex gets use of the bus once a week. There is no choice of when to travel.

I have a further point. We have focused during the discussion on the role of local authorities. It is fair to say that the flexibility that local authorities enjoy in the provision of accessible transport for disabled people has failed disabled people. We hope that the committee will ask the Executive what it intends to do to bring more standardised regulations to bear on local authorities. We want standard regulations not only to encourage local authorities to provide services for disabled people but to ensure that local authorities are in line with the Executive's social justice agenda, so that people will not be isolated in their own homes and that services will be available to allow disabled people to play an active part in normal life. Local authorities must be instructed rather than encouraged.