The proceedings are
reported in the language in which they were spoken in the
committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
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Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:00.
The meeting began at 09:00.
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Cyflwyniad, Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datganiadau o
Fuddiant
Introduction, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of
Interest
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[1]
Mike Hedges: Can I welcome everyone to this meeting? I
remind participants that you are welcome to speak in Welsh or
English. Headsets are available for translation of Welsh to
English. There’s no need to turn off mobile phones or other
electronic devices, but please ensure that any devices are on
silent mode. It’s hugely embarrassing if they’re not.
We’ve had one apology, and Angela Burns is substituting for
Janet Finch-Saunders.
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Deisebau
Newydd
New Petitions
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[2]
Mike Hedges: That takes us on to item 2, which is new
petitions. We’ve had a petition on ‘Increased Provision
for Off Road Motorsports’, submitted by Jonathan Barrett,
having collected 318 signatures. We sent it to the Cabinet
Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs on 31 January and
received a response on 15 February. We’ve had a research
brief on the petition and related issues. The petitioner has been
informed that the petition would be considered by the committee but
had not responded when papers for the committee were being
finalised. The Cabinet Secretary has stated that officials will
review the guidance on regulating off-road motoring and meet with
the petitioners to discuss their concerns. A Welsh Government
consultation on improving opportunities to access the outdoors for
recreation is currently being prepared. We can either close the
petition or await the result of the petitioner’s meeting with
the Cabinet Secretary. I suggest we await the petitioner’s
meeting with the Cabinet Secretary.
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[3]
Neil McEvoy: I’d like to meet him as well, if
possible, because it’s a massive issue for us in the west of
Cardiff. So, I’d be interested to discuss what they’re
after, really.
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[4]
Mike Hedges: Well, I think it’s a problem in lots of
places. I’m sure that Angela Burns can tell us that there are
problems in rural areas as well—
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[5]
Angela Burns: Yes, huge.
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[6]
Mike Hedges: —where people from my area and your area
to drive down to off-road. So, we’ll await the view of the
petitioners to see if it’s been resolved.
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[7]
‘Free School Transport for All Children in Wales’. A
first-consideration letter was sent to the Cabinet Secretary on 1
February. A response was received on 14 February. We’ve got a
research briefing on the petition and related issues. The
petitioner was informed that the petition would be considered by
the committee but had not responded when the papers for the
committee were being finalised. We know the rules: two miles for
under-11s and three miles for children over 11. Local authorities
can offer discretion on free transport on wider areas, and they
also have to do it if there’s not a safe route. Shall we
await the view of the petitioner before considering how to progress
the petition?
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[8]
Neil McEvoy: Yes.
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[9]
Angela Burns: Yes.
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[10]
Mike Hedges: ‘TB
Testing of Cattle’. A first-consideration letter was sent to
the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs on 14
February. A response was received on 23 February. We’ve had a
research briefing. The petitioner was informed that the petition
would be considered by the committee but had not responded when the
papers for the committee were being finalised. A consultation on a
refreshed TB eradication programme, which included a proposal to
move to six-month testing intervals for herds in high TB areas,
closed on 10 January. The Cabinet Secretary has stated that a
substantial number of responses are currently being considered. The
Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee has
recently undertaken an inquiry into bovine TB and is due to report
in the summer. The committee heard evidence from the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that six-monthly testing in
high-risk areas has seen beneficial impacts in England. Shall we
await the view of the petitioner in response to the letter, and
then consider how we move on?
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[11]
Neil McEvoy: Yes.
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09:03
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Y Wybodaeth
Ddiweddaraf am Ddeisebau Blaenorol
Updates to Previous
Petitions
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[12]
Mike Hedges: Updates on previous petitions. ‘Tywyn
Memorial Hospital X-ray & Minor Injuries Unit Petition’
from 14 May 2013. We’ve had a response from the health board,
which outlines the background to the changes made and the
arrangements for accessing minor injuries in Tywyn. The petitioners
have expressed their satisfaction with the response and the
commitment made to provision of services through GP practices and
communicating the arrangements locally. They expressed their thanks
to the committee and their satisfaction with the regeneration of
Tywyn Memorial Hospital. So, we’ll close the
petition—
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[13]
Angela Burns: That seems sensible.
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[14]
Mike Hedges: —and note the petitioner’s
satisfaction and congratulate them on their success.
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[15]
‘45000 Reasons Wales Needs a Dementia Strategy’. Last
considered—when did it start its life? It was July last year.
The committee last considered the petition on 13 September.
We’ve had a response from the petitioners on 8 March, and
it’s included in the papers. The petitioners have confirmed
that they are working with the Welsh Government and people affected
by dementia on the development of a dementia strategy. They have
stated that they are content for the petition to be closed, given
that the main objective is now being met. So, we’ll close the
petition—another success.
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[16]
‘Unacceptable Waiting Times for NHS patients in A&E
Wrecsam/Wrexham Maelor Hospital.’ It was first considered on
17 January. The response form the health board acknowledges the
need for improvements in waiting times at Wrexham Maelor
Hospital’s emergency department and sets out actions being
taken to seek to achieve this. We will await the views of the
petitioner on the correspondence from the Welsh Government and
Betsi Cadwaladr before considering how we take it forward.
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[17]
Angela Burns: Yes.
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[18]
Mike Hedges: ‘Allow
Children in Wales to Have a Family Holiday During Term Time’.
This was first considered on 15 July 2014. The clerking team
recently contacted the petitioners to seek an update on the latest
position. A response was received from the petitioner on 9 March,
which is included in the papers for the meeting. What action do you
want to take? The previous Petitions Committee gave detailed
consideration to the petition, including through correspondence
from the Welsh Government, WLGA, the children’s commissioner
and the petitioner. Following an oral evidence session with the
Committee in November 2015, the Minister for Education and Skills
wrote to directors of education and regional education consortia to
seek evidence that Welsh Government’s guidance was being
implemented fairly. The Minister also wrote to headteachers to
ensure schools were clear about the arrangements. This included
clarification that schools have a discretionary power to authorise
up to 10 days absence during a school year for family holidays
during term time. The letter also stated that blanket policies to
refuse such absences are contrary to the regulations. The
petitioner still believes that there is an issue with headteachers
in some local authorities being required to record all absences in
term time as ‘unauthorised leave’. We could write to
the Cabinet Secretary to ask whether any further steps have been
taken in relation to this issue, which I think is probably the best
thing we can do.
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[19]
Angela Burns: May I make a comment?
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[20]
Mike Hedges: Please do.
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[21]
Angela Burns: It’s just interesting on this petition, I
thought, because in a previous role when I spoke for education, I
did a lot of liaising with this, because this was raised in a
number of places, and there does appear to be a gap, from the
evidence that I’ve seen and from correspondence I’ve
received from all over Wales, where the Minister has one view and
has said, ‘You have a 10-day discretion’, but the
regional consortia actually then put out their own statement.
I’ve asked for clarification on this issue in the Chamber on
a number of times, and I’d like to really press the education
Secretary. It got to a point where the discussion was about whose
word was writ—should it be the Cabinet Secretary whose final
determination was top, or should it be the regional consortia?
Because the regional consortia, Chair, are going out and saying,
‘If you take your children out, it is an unauthorised
absence’, and they are instructing their heads to not allow
holidays during term time. I do think this is an area where we
could effectively try to get a definitive answer, and ensure that
definitive answer is applied consistently throughout
Wales.
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[22]
Mike Hedges: I would agree with you on consistency throughout
Wales, especially as regional consortia, like with all boundaries,
have people rubbing against the boundary one side or the other. So,
I think it really is important that we get some consistency. Can we
write to the Cabinet Secretary along those lines?
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[23]
Mr Francis: Of course,
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[24]
Mike Hedges: Everybody happy to do that?
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[25]
Angela Burns: Yes. Thank you.
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[26]
Mike Hedges: ‘To improve access to Education and
services in British Sign Language’ was first considered on 24
March, having collected 1,162 signatures. It was last considered on
13 December and we agreed to write to the Minister for Lifelong
Learning and Welsh Language to request an update. A response was
received on 22 February. Further comments have also been received
from the petitioners and all responses are included in the papers.
The Minister’s letter recognised the importance of sign
language and commits to an inclusive education system for all
learners. It states that the responsibility rests with local
authorities to ensure British Sign Language is available to
children who need it. The Minister also refers to the additional
learning needs Bill, which will replace existing legislation. The
petitioners have outlined their main concerns that BSL should be
compulsory in mainstream education from early years; for BSL to be
added to the national curriculum; and for free provision of BSL
classes for families of deaf children. I should at this stage state
that my sister is profoundly deaf, and I’ve been involved
with the organisation, though not with this petition. So, can I
just put that declaration on the record? We can either write again
to the Minister for lifelong learning or we could meet with the petitioners, the Minister for
lifelong learning and WLGA to discuss what people are doing. My
preference would be the latter.
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[27]
Neil McEvoy: Yes.
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[28]
Mike Hedges: Okay. It would follow on from this current
investigation. We won’t be doing it until well after Easter,
but it is something where I think we can add value by being
involved.
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[29]
Neil McEvoy: Yes. I just think—can I just say, Chair, that
it’s a bit of a cop out from the Minister, really, to throw
it back to local authorities? So I’d really
welcome—
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[30]
Mike Hedges: What we don’t want, I’m sure, is that
local authorities say, ‘We’re waiting for ministerial
advice’, and the Minister says, ‘It’s the
responsibility of local authorities’, and nothing happens
while we have this non-discussion. So, I think it would be useful
to get all three—the petitioner and the other two—in
the room so we can have that discussion.
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[31]
‘Funding for the Education Workforce Council Registration
(EWC) Fee for Learning Support Workers in Schools’. This
petition was submitted by UNISON Cymru, and considered first on 13
December. The committee last considered the petition on 14 February
and agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education seeking
a response to the concerns and questions raised by the petitioners,
and asking whether it is the Welsh Government’s intention to
continue to subsidise the registration fees of low-paid school
staff in future years. We had a response from the Cabinet Secretary
on 7 March. The petitioner has also submitted further comments,
which are included in the paper.
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[32]
The fee structure was agreed by the Assembly on 31 January.
Learning support workers will receive a Welsh Government subsidy of
£31, resulting in a registration fee of £15. The
Cabinet Secretary’s letter provides detailed answers to the
issues raised by the petitioners, including in relation to the
value of registration in providing reassurance to parents and
improving the status of the role. The petitioners have reiterated
their concern that support staff do not receive value for money
from the registration fee due to the absence of professional
standards. The Cabinet Secretary has also confirmed that there are
currently no plans to remove the subsidy in future years.
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[33]
The primary subject of the original petition, which was the subsidy
level for 2017-18, has been resolved. Given this, and the fact that
the value of registration is a longer-term issue, we could close
the petition. I think we’ve gone as far as we can. Of the
£46, £31 is being funded by the Welsh Government, and
some local authorities are also funding £15. But that’s
a matter of local determination.
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[34]
Angela Burns: I would agree with you, Chair. I think this is
a much bigger battle in terms of the Education Workforce Council
really getting involved in continuous professional development for
everybody in the education field. That’s not what this
petition is about.
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[35]
Mike Hedges: Okay. Is
everybody happy with closing it? Yes.
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[36]
‘Road Safety Improvements Along
the A487 Trunk Road between Cardigan and Aberystwyth, to Include
Passing Places’. This was first considered on 13
September 2016. We agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for
Economy and Infrastructure seeking a more specific timetable for
the review that his officials are currently undertaking and asking
that the committee is informed of the outcome; and asking for the
petitioner’s specific request for a study into the provision
of safe overtaking lanes to be taken into consideration as part of
the review. Due to an administrative error, the original letter
from the committee was not received. A response from the Cabinet
Secretary was received on 2 March. The petitioner has responded to
thank the committee for their consideration but has not offered
specific comments on the Government’s response.
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[37]
We’ve had from the Cabinet Secretary the steps that are
currently being taken in relation to the A487: a part-time speed
limit outside Ysgol Llanfarian; discussions with the local
authority over a series of potential improvements; and a Wales-wide
speed limit review set to be carried out in the summer. The Cabinet
Secretary has confirmed that the petitioner’s comments will
be considered as part of the ongoing work. We could contact the
petitioner asking if they’ve got any further comments.
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[38]
I did my own site visit on the weekend on that road, and I can
understand where the petitioners are coming from. I’m going
to do another site visit this weekend on the bit from Aberaeron to
Aberystwyth. There are problems there, and I think that I’d
like to go back to the petitioner to see if there’s anything
they’d like to add so that it can be put into the Government
review.
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[39]
Angela Burns: I’d be content with that. I know, from a
personal perspective, I get a lot of lobbying in my constituency on
this issue, because of course for constituents in west Wales to go
north, that is the logical route, and it’s a nightmare,
particularly in the summer months.
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[40]
Mike Hedges: It’s the
least bad route for going north.
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[41]
‘Penegoes Speed Limit Petition’. This was first
considered on 13 December 2016 and last considered on 17 January,
and we agreed to share the results of the petitioners’
traffic monitoring scheme with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy
and Infrastructure, seeking his views and asking if this
information could be taken into account as part of the ongoing work
on the safety of this stretch of road. I received a letter from the
Cabinet Secretary. The petitioners have confirmed their intention
to take up the Cabinet Secretary’s offer of a discussion with
officials and to update the committee on their options.
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09:15
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[42]
Mr Francis: Chair, there’s been a subsequent update on
this as well from the petitioner who says he has spoken to the
Government official concerned on the matter, and that the official
had said he would look into things. We haven’t heard anything
officially, so perhaps the route for this would be to ask the
Cabinet Secretary for an update on the outcome of that
conversation.
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[43]
Mike Hedges: Yes, I think that would be a sensible way of
taking it forward.
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[44]
‘Ban Letting Agent Fees to Tenants’—first
considered on 14 February. The committee considered the petition on
14 February and agreed to write to the Equalities, Local Government
and Communities Committee to ask if they intend to conduct work on
this issue; and the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children
requesting further information on the timescale in which he intends
to make a decision over whether legislation is required on the
issue. A response from the Cabinet Secretary was received on 6
March. On 1 March, the Equality, Local Government and Communities
Committee noted the correspondence from the Petitions Committee,
and also agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Communities
and Children before returning to the issue at a future meeting. The
petitioners were informed that the petition would be considered by
the committee, but had not responded when the papers for the
committee were being finalised.
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[45]
The Cabinet Secretary’s letter states his intention to
announce how the Government intends to respond to this matter
shortly. It also states that Rent Smart Wales already provides
stronger controls over landlords and letting agents than anywhere
else in the UK. We could wait to see what the Equalities, Local
Government and Communities Committee are doing. A number of
people—I think at least two people in this room—have
put in for a private Members Bill on banning letting fees.
It’s one of the ones that I think is worth keeping on the
table, and I think we could write to the Cabinet Secretary asking
when he intends to make a statement.
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[46]
Thank you. We’ve gone through those in under time, so
we’ll move on.
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09:17
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Sesiwn Dystiolaeth—P-05-710 Sicrhau y gall Pobl
Anabl Ddefnyddio Trafnidiaeth Gyhoeddus Pryd Bynnag y Bo’i
Hangen Arnynt
Evidence Session—P-05-710 Ensure Disabled People can Access
Public Transport As and When They Need it
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[47]
Mike Hedges: The main item of today is: ‘Ensure
Disabled People can Access Public Transport As and When They Need
it’. Whizz-Kidz gave us a very interesting and very
informative presentation a few weeks ago where they showed a video
and explained all the difficulties that people with difficulties
have, and the need for help getting on and off trains, buses and
taxis. We were of the view that we wished to have an opportunity to
discuss their concerns with public transport providers, who should
be arriving shortly.
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[48]
Can I welcome the witnesses to the meeting, and thank you very much
for coming today? You can speak in either English or Welsh. If you
get a question in Welsh, we have a translation facility available
for you to be able to translate into English if you need it. You
have been provided with links to a video and PowerPoint
presentation shown to this committee by Whizz-Kidz in advance of
this session. Can you please introduce
yourselves for the record?
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[49]
Mr Graham: My name’s Joe Graham and I’m the business
assurance director for Great Western Railway.
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[50]
Ms Hickish: I’m Margaret Hickish. I’m the access and
inclusion manager for Network Rail.
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[51]
Mr Morgan: I’m Geraint Morgan, a community affairs manager
for Arriva Trains.
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[52]
Mr Lloyd: I’m Barry Lloyd, head of customer experience at
Arriva Trains Wales.
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[53]
Mike Hedges: Again, thank you for coming. We have a number of
questions and please don’t feel that everyone has to add
something to every question. If you have nothing you wish to
add—. It’s not an exam—you don’t get marked
on it.
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[54]
If I can kick off the questions:
you’ve seen the list of problems identified by Whiz-Kids,
from disabled passengers. I’ve also been contacted by people
with sensory problems, both deaf and sight issues, who have also
identified a series of problems. So, how are you addressing these
problems?
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[55]
Mr Morgan: On behalf of Arriva, my personal role is to liaise
with disabled support groups across the network. We’re
meeting with groups: we’ve done some with the Stroke
Association in south Wales, with a visually impaired group in
Aberystwyth and a group with learning disabilities in Cardiff. They
travel with us on the train so that they can experience our
assisted travel scheme, but they also provide valuable feedback so
we can learn lessons on where we can improve.
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[56]
Mr Graham: On behalf of Great Western, we operate similar
systems and we work closely with several charities and groups,
including a group called KIDS, which is a leading disabled
children’s charity. As well as doing things that Geraint has
pointed out, we’ve also got together with them to help our
staff with training. So, they’ve actually gone out and made
some training videos with us in order to help our staff serve
better the needs of travellers of that nature.
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[57]
Ms Hickish: In Network Rail, we’ve been taking a rather
two-pronged approach. We’ve basically been working a lot on
the built environment and we have an inclusive design strategy.
That is supported by something called our built environment
accessibility panel, which is a group of disabled volunteers who
advise us on best practice and also innovations around the built
environment. In addition to that, we changed our training for our
customer-service staff and our customer-facing staff some four
years ago, and that’s now co-delivered by a disabled person
in order to ensure that everybody has first-hand experience of
speaking to a disabled person, but also gets to have a normal,
day-to-day conversation with them.
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[58]
Mike Hedges: Have any of you talked to Whizz-Kids, who did come
along with lots of problems that they had identified? Have you
talked to people with sensory loss? Trains are very good at
announcing where you are for people who have sight problems, but
announcements don’t always flash up for people who’ve
got hearing problems.
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[59]
Mr Morgan: Yes, we engage with a range of people with a range of
difficult disabilities. One of the things that we have for people
who may find it difficult to communicate is the orange wallet,
which you may be familiar with. This is available on buses as well
across Wales. Essentially, how it works is, you would download from
our website a list of questions—the 25 most commonly asked
questions that you might use when you’re travelling, such as,
‘Could I have a single ticket to…?’, and you
write in the answer and the staff in ticket offices and on buses
and trains are aware of that—they can see the brightness of
this wallet and they know then that that person might require
additional assistance with their journey.
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[60]
Mr Lloyd: We actually spoke to Whizz-Kids around four to six
weeks or so ago. They came into the office in Cardiff and spoke
with us for an hour or so, so we have an understanding of their
needs, what we can do for them and, essentially, what they’re
looking for to make their travel easier with us. So, we started
those conversations with the group directly as well and they went
well at that time.
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[61]
Mr Graham: In addition to the areas that we’ve already
talked about, we’ve also worked with guide dogs and our local
deaf school and went to the deaf school. We’ve also tried to
look at areas like dementia. So, there’s a charity called
Purple Angel—dementia friends—which we work with. So,
we try to cover all the different areas to ensure that everybody
gets a fair opportunity to travel on rail services.
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[62]
Ms Hickish: No, we haven’t particularly spoken to
Whizz-Kids recently, however I know Whizz-Kids and have been
working with them over the period of the last four
years.
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[63]
Mike Hedges: Thank you. Angela.
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[64]
Angela Burns: Thank you. I was quite interested to understand, on a
more practical level, who would be responsible for station access,
because I know in my particular area of Carmarthen West and
South Pembrokeshire, we have quite a lot of smaller stations that
don’t have much manning, and it’s the devil’s own
job for somebody with a disability to be able to access the
trains.
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[65]
Mr Lloyd: Well, staff in stations is the responsibility of
us at Arriva Trains Wales and at Great Western. So, ensuring that
the right staff are at the station to assist anybody who needs any
help is the responsibility of the franchisee. Twenty per cent of
our stations are staffed; for the unstaffed stations, we rely on
the train crew to support anybody who needs any assistance getting
on or off the train. So, all the conductors are trained in anything
to do with accessibility. So, we enable them to assist people as
they are waiting for the train if they wish to turn up and get on
the service that way.
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[66]
In terms of accessibility, we work jointly with Network Rail to
make sure that as many of our stations are accessible as possible.
There is a long-standing scheme and we have a number of
enhancements that have been made over the last few years, which
Geraint’s got there. But we continue to work with Network
Rail to get as much funding as possible to provide as much
accessibility as we possibly can.
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[67]
Angela Burns: Do all your trains have more than one person
on them in order to aid somebody in trying to get on and off the
train?
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[68]
Mr Lloyd: So, every train runs with a driver and a
conductor, so there are always two people. Obviously, the driver is
in the front cab driving the train, but the conductor is the person
who is available to support and assist where needed.
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[69]
Angela Burns: And do all of your trains always have ramps
available?
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[70]
Mr Lloyd: Yes, all of our trains have got ramps on them.
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[71]
Mr Morgan: Accessibility in west Wales is pretty good, and
we have a map, which I can give you later. About 93 per cent of the
stations are fully accessible. And by that, that means that you can
cross between the station platforms if there’s more than one
platform. There are not many that you can’t access. Again, I
can share that information with you.
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[72]
Angela Burns: I accept that point. However, I’m
thinking of a constituent only a few months ago, before Christmas,
struggling to get on a train in Pembrokeshire because there was
no-one there who had a ramp and they wouldn’t put the ramp
out. They said they didn’t have the ramp.
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[73]
Mr Morgan: There’s a ramp. There should be a ramp on
every train.
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[74]
Mr Lloyd: Yes.
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[75]
Mr Morgan: They’re in the middle.
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[76]
Angela Burns: And that’s the feedback she had. She was
on her own and in a wheelchair.
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[77]
Mr Morgan: If you’d like to share that with us, we can
investigate that.
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[78]
Angela Burns: Very happy to do that.
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[79]
Mr Graham: From a Great Western perspective, the majority of
our services in Wales are high-speed. We do have the
Cardiff-Portsmouth and the Taunton services that are smaller
trains. All of our high-speed trains have disabled facilities. Some
of our older fleet don’t yet, but are in the middle of having
disabled facilities put in. The same is true, which is that all of
our services are double manned, so there’s a driver and a
conductor or a train manager on every service in Wales, and, again,
we do have ramps either on the train or available on the platform
in stations for the units that don’t have ramps on board.
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[80]
So, the other thing I always point out is that, for those stations
that aren’t accessible, what we would always offer is the
ability to take a particular person to the nearest accessible
station for free. So, if for somebody their local station is not
accessible, then we would pay every time to ensure that we provide
them with—
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[81]
Angela Burns: Oh, would you?
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[82]
Mr Graham: Yes, absolutely.
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[83]
Angela Burns: Is that on your website?
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[84]
Mr Graham: Yes. It’s in our disabled persons
protection policy—
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[85]
Angela Burns: Oh, that’s excellent.
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[86]
Mr Graham: —and it’s probably true for
Arriva.
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[87]
Mr Lloyd: Same for us, too.
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[88]
Mr Graham: So, if your local station is not accessible, we
will always pay for a taxi or similar equipment to get you to the
nearest location that is accessible.
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[89]
Mr Morgan: The purpose of these awareness visits is to help
people understand the help that is available, because the
perception is that the train or the bus isn’t very
accessible, whereas in most cases it is.
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[90]
Angela Burns: Okay. May I ask one more question, Chair?
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[91]
Mike Hedges: Please do.
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[92]
Angela Burns: That brings me on to—. So, we got on to
the train, but how about the issues of actually trying to get the
ticket? Because, again—and I can only speak for my particular
area of west Wales—a lot of the stations don’t have
ticket machines either, so you have to go to, say, Haverfordwest or
wherever to get a ticket, and, again, that’s a real
impediment to travel for somebody with a disability. So, are there
ways around that, or—?
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[93]
Mr Lloyd: There are number of ways we’ve got of buying
in advance. We’ve got a new mobile app, which will be
accessible for anybody who’s got smart phone. That’s
proving very popular at the moment and, ultimately, you’ve
got a ticket in your hand that is inspectable for when you need it.
Our website also retails tickets in advance. So, you can have them
sent to your home address in advance of you travelling. On the day,
if you haven’t got a ticket in advance, it’s trying to
get it from the conductor on board, when you see them, when
they’re helping you on the train. That’s generally the
ways of buying it in advance of—
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[94]
Angela Burns: And you’re allowed to buy it off the
conductor, are you, because you said ‘try’?
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[95]
Mr Lloyd: When the conductor helps you on, certainly, you
can ask to be collected there. But we do advise is to buy before
you board. If there are no ticket facilities at the station
you’re boarding from, then certainly buy it from the
conductor on board.
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09:30
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[96]
Angela Burns: Yes, and of course if you have sight issues,
it’s not easy access that on the website.
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[97]
Mr Lloyd: Yes, and that’s absolutely fine.
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[98]
Angela Burns: Thank you.
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[99]
Mike Hedges: Okay, thank you. Gareth, do you have some
questions on training?
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[100] Gareth
Bennett: Yes. Thanks for your time. I was pleased to hear that
you are involved with disabled groups when you do your staff
training. Could you elaborate on that a little bit—on how
that works?
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[101] Mr
Morgan: Personally, I meet with the disabled groups. For
example, Pontypridd now is a dementia-friendly station, and
that’s something that we would like to expand further
throughout the year, working with the Alzheimer’s Society.
When staff join the business, they have basic awareness training.
It’s not specific to any particular disability; it’s
how they can assist a person at a station: for example, if they
have sight loss, how to correctly guide them through the station,
how to use the ramp correctly. So that’s the training that we
have. But we’re always keen to improve the awareness of every
type of disability.
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[102] Gareth
Bennett: How often would they have refreshers on that kind of
stuff?
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[103] Mr Lloyd:
They would have their refreshers whilst they are out with their
manager, essentially—they would have an on-the-job assessment
to make sure that they are still able to use the ramps with the
right level skill of skill and ability.
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|
[104] Mr
Graham: From a Great Western perspective, every customer-facing
colleague gets a full day of awareness training when they join the
company. That’s updated annually through the safety and
business briefing process. So, each individual gets an update every
year. We also have a manager whose responsibility is very similar
to Gareth’s—he’s a mobility and inclusion
manager. His job is to liaise with all the local groups, nationally
in all different areas, to ensure that we offer the best service to
people in the position.
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[105] Gareth
Bennett: And the disabled groups—I think you were saying
that they have fed into your training procedures. They’ve
contributed to this training.
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[106] Mr
Morgan: There’s a group in Cardiff called Vision 21.
They’re based in Llanishen and they travel very regularly by
train and by bus and they provide very helpful feedback to us on
their journey experiences. I’ve travelled with them many
times. I don’t brief the crew that we’re
coming—they experience the journey as it is and it’s
been okay.
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[107] Gareth
Bennett: Okay. But sometimes things do go wrong. Angela
mentioned ramps. Ramps were mentioned when we had the evidence
session, which Angela wasn’t here for. But ramps were
mentioned, and lifts was another one. Sometimes it completely
messes up somebody’s journey if the lift isn’t working.
So who would have the responsibility for the lift? And what’s
supposed to happen?
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[108] Mr
Morgan: If the lift broke down at a station, that would be
faulted through our control. And if a person was disadvantaged by
not being able to access the correct platform, we would then make
alternative travel arrangements to help them out to make sure they
complete the journey.
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|
[109] Mr
Graham: And the same—as we mentioned earlier, if that was
the case on Great Western, and probably Arriva as well, we would
then give you a free taxi to the next accessible location. So what
we would ask you to do, if the lift was out of order, is we would
carry you to the next station, and then we’d provide an
accessible vehicle to take you back to wherever you wanted to
go—probably to your actual destination as opposed to the
station.
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|
[110] Mr Lloyd:
And that is true for Arriva Trains Wales too.
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|
[111]
Mike Hedges: Do you advertise that? Sorry to interrupt, Gareth. Do
you advertise that at the station—‘The lift is out of
order, please contact the station staff to make
arrangements’?
|
|
[112] Mr
Morgan: Quite often a lift will break down in service. That
could happen now—say at Llandaf, for example—and the
first we will know of it is the train crew will report it. So we
will act on it immediately. There are help points at some stations,
but not at all stations. Our advice to anybody affected by that
would be to call our customer relations team, which Barry is
responsible for, and we would make arrangements from there.
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|
[113] Mr
Graham: Every Great Western station has a help point. So
there’s always the opportunity to summon assistance if you
need it.
|
|
[114] Gareth
Bennet: The other thing I was thinking of, carrying on from
something Angela raised with ticketing: Arriva has had a little bit
of publicity, not necessarily good publicity, over people being
fined heavily for not buying tickets. It seems to be a more
stringent policy—that customers are being told they have to
buy a ticket before they get on the train now. And, of course, this
has raised issues of the accessibility of the ticket machines on
the stations. So I wondered if that might cause, in the future,
problems for disabled people, and how you are dealing deal with
that.
|
|
[115] Mr
Morgan: There’s a clear policy: if you have a disabled
person’s railcard, or even if you don’t, you do not
have to buy a ticket before you board if you have a disability.
|
|
[116]
Mr Graham: That’s true for Great Western as
well—in fact, nationally, I believe.
|
|
[117] Ms
Hickish: Absolutely.
|
|
[118] Mike
Hedges: Neil.
|
|
[119] Neil
McEvoy: You’ve mentioned the orange wallet. Do staff have
those as well?
|
|
[120] Mr
Morgan: No. These are available from Barry’s team. The
reason that they’re available from Barry’s team is so
that we can monitor how many people want them. Usage has been quite
good. All the staff at ticket offices will be aware of them, and on
the trains as well.
|
|
[121] Neil
McEvoy: Do you think it would be a good idea for staff to have
them, though?
|
|
[122] Mr
Morgan: They could—
|
|
[123] Neil
McEvoy: Because if the situation arises where somebody is
unable to communicate, then that could be something—.
|
|
[124] Mr
Morgan: The other useful tool that we have as well is this
assistance dog card, which conductors carry, so if the customer was
travelling with an assistance dog, our findings have proved that
the dog, naturally, needs somewhere to sit on the floor next to the
passenger, and this sits in the seat next to the customer so that
people will know that this space is reserved for the dog. They
might not be able to see the dog, but what we don’t want is
people saying, ‘Why is that seat being kept free when I need
to sit down?’, so they can clearly see that that’s
being used for that purpose, and conductors do carry those.
|
|
[125] Neil
McEvoy: Do you think that staff having an orange wallet is
something you may want to look at?
|
|
[126] Mr
Morgan: Potentially, yes. I think there’s an element of
pre-work needed to carry the wallet, to print off the sort of
questions that you need, and to carry what questions you want to
ask in advance. I think giving them out on the day is not really
going to support the traveller there and then, but it may certainly
support the next journey, certainly.
|
|
[127] Neil
McEvoy: But if someone’s unable to communicate, then if
the person takes out the wallet and there’s a selection of
things to choose from, then they could choose the card.
|
|
[128] Mr Lloyd:
Certainly. It’s certainly something we’ll look into,
yes.
|
|
[129] Neil
McEvoy: In terms of training, I’m interested in the depth
of the training, really. Can you tell me a little bit more about
what the training entails?
|
|
[130] Mr
Morgan: Neither of us are in the training department.
It’s much like yours, really, in that they have awareness
training when they begin, which covers boarding trains, helping
people—
|
|
[131] Mr Lloyd:
How to use the ramps.
|
|
[132] Mr
Morgan: How to use the ramps properly.
|
|
[133] Mr
Graham: We’ve also, through—. This is what I
mentioned earlier, where we’ve worked with the charity KIDS
to develop a training video. The idea there is that we scoped out a
number of scenarios that might happen to a colleague, and so they
can then see—and then we’ll put them through a
discussion in teams to understand what they could have done
differently, or what could be done differently, to support the
person and to make the whole experience better.
|
|
[134] Neil
McEvoy: Do you know what they do, Margaret, in terms of
training?
|
|
[135] Ms
Hickish: Yes, absolutely. I wrote the training, so yes, I do.
It’s specifically around understanding the lives of disabled
people when they travel. One of the things that we want people to
understand is that when a disabled person turns up and
they’ve actually got a big smile on their face, that the
staff need to understand that means they’ve had a good
journey up until now, and when they haven’t, it doesn’t
mean that people have got a chip on their shoulder but, actually,
they may have had a bad journey up until now, and it’s not
anything related to them. So, it is about them starting to
understand the challenges that disabled people have in life, and
that’s one of the reasons why we use disabled people. We get
them to talk about what their last journey was like, and how they
feel, and how they would feel if they’d had that experience.
And in doing that, it’s about trying to immerse them in the
experience without mocking up being a disabled person.
|
|
[136] So, we use
videos and we use images so that they can understand what people
see. We also give them a taster on sign language, and also a taster
on lip reading and understanding how difficult that is. We use
tapes that we’ve got from Cambridge university on tinnitus so
that people can understand how challenging it can be to hear. But
we’re also explaining to them that just simply writing
something down for someone who uses sign language doesn’t
work, because quite often people with sign language don’t
read language the same as the people who can speak do, and the
people who can hear do. So, it’s actually a different
structure of language if you use BSL, so getting them to understand
that. Sensory impairment is particularly important on that course.
And we actually run refresher training as part of our station
refreshers. So, last week I spent time with the team from Euston
station, talking to them about what their challenges are and what
they might be able to do better, and actually, what they thought
that we could do better. And also understanding what we could share
with our top colleagues to actually deliver a better service, which
is much more about involving them and making them more thoughtful
about the process. And I think we’ve seen quite a lot of
success in it.
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|
[137] Neil
McEvoy: Just one thing. You said ‘without’ mocking
up to be either disabled or blind. I went to the blind institute,
and what I found useful was to actually be blindfolded and be asked
to walk around the building. It was amazing, really—
|
|
[138] Mr
Morgan: We’ve done an exercise like that with Mark
Williams in Aberystwyth a couple of weeks ago—
|
|
[139] Neil
McEvoy: Did staff do it?
|
|
[140] Mr
Morgan: It’s an opportunity for us to do it, yes.
|
|
[141] Neil
McEvoy: Just very quickly on the sign language, do staff have
qualifications? Is there a structure for staff to—
|
|
[142] Ms
Hickish: Actually, it’s literally a taster of what
we’re trying to do—it’s to get those people who
are interested. And my next step is to actually start running sign
language training for our station staff, but that’s the next
step. But what I need to do is have a body of people who are
actually interested, because it’s not an easy thing to learn.
So, it has to be people who are enthusiastic to do it.
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|
[143] Mr
Graham: From a Great Western perspective, it’s very, very
similar. What we do have when someone does want to learn sign
language—we will pay for that and put them through the course
to do so. So, it’s not something we force people to do,
however, if they wish to do it, which a number of our colleagues
do, the company is happy to pay for that.
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|
[144] Mr Lloyd:
Just if I could add, we’ve got a number of customer panels
that we use in our business. A selection of customers that travel
with us meet with us quarterly to give us feedback on how
we’re getting on, and we have a number of people—. We
work with accessibility issues in our customer panels. We get some
direct excellent feedback about what’s working, what’s
not and what needs to change to help us improve our provision to
the community that we serve.
|
|
[145] Neil
McEvoy: Can I just ask—?
|
|
[146] Mike
Hedges: Keep going, yes.
|
|
[147] Neil
McEvoy: Just with the sign language, I remember when I was a
teacher that if there was the incentive of an extra point, then
colleagues would undertake certain duties. Is there any move to
include an extra salary implication for being qualified in sign
language, or is that something you’ve not looked at?
|
|
[148] Mr
Graham: Not currently. However, I’m sure it’s
something that we would consider and look at. Generally, in most of
our training and development programmes, it’s seen as a
benefit for the member of staff or the colleague to have and,
actually, they get an awful lot of fulfilment out of being able to
deliver a better service and relate to people. That’s often
enough of an incentive.
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|
[149] Neil
McEvoy: Right. If there was a financial incentive, you might
get more, though. Just very quickly on the upgrading of stock, I
read that the Welsh stock is actually going to be old stock, but
revamped, coming onto the rail. What are the implications there for
people with disabilities if the new rolling stock is actually old
stock in Wales?
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|
[150] Mr
Graham: From a Great Western perspective, the first thing to
say is that the PRM TSI—without using too many acronyms for
you; that is the modification of older stock to be able to be used
in line with law—that needs to be completed by 2020, and so
trains won’t be able to run unless they have a specific
derogation. So, we’re all working towards moving our rolling
stock forward in that regard. From a Great Western perspective, our
high-speed trains all have disabled access at the moment. However,
the new class 800 trains that will be coming in from October this
year will also have new upgraded and modern disabled facilities and
accessible facilities. The older stock that we have on the network,
which tend to be the stock that’s used on our
Cardiff-Portsmouth services and the Cardiff-Taunton
services—the 158 fleet is in the middle of being modified at
the moment. The first three units have gone through. The fourth one
is in the works at the moment, and that will all be completed by
early 2019. The same for our 150s that do the Taunton services. And
from an Arriva perspective—
|
|
[151] Mr Lloyd:
Ours is a little bit different, unfortunately. So, regulations come
into force on 1 January 2020. At that point, we are not currently
going to be the franchisee, so it’s not essentially a Wales
and borders franchise issue. We’ve been advising Welsh
Government on the matter for a number of years, really—I
think from the Business and Enterprise Committee, maybe three to
four years ago. Something needs to happen, but at this moment in
time we can’t instigate any change because we may not be that
franchisee. Obviously, when that franchise matter gets resolved at
Christmas time this year, we’ll be in a position to maybe do
something about it, but if it’s not us, then ultimately,
we’re looking at Welsh Government for support and advice on
how to move forwards.
|
|
[152]
Mike Hedges: Angela.
|
|
[153]
Angela Burns: I’m just curious to know why a train might have
a derogation.
|
|
[154]
Mr Graham: It’s a very good question, and the Department
for Transport would be the people—or the Welsh Government in
Wales—would be the people who would grant that. A derogation
could be for a number of reasons.
|
|
09:45
|
|
[155] For example, if a train was going to be around
for another three to six months, say, after the deadline, and it
would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, you might allow that
train to continue running so the service wasn’t completely
removed. But, again, it’s something that the department and
the different authorities would make a decision on. It’s not
something the operator can implement.
|
|
[156] Mr Lloyd:
Potentially, a derogation could be in place for the units that we
currently use in Wales and borders. Our understanding is that
Transport for Wales are looking at the new franchise bid as being
part of the accessibility and inclusion responsibilities for the
new franchisee. It will be part of that bidding process.
|
|
[157] Angela
Burns: May I ask just one more quick question?
|
|
[158] Mike
Hedges: Keep going.
|
|
[159] Angela
Burns: When a disabled person is on the train—again,
I’ve had this issue some time ago, so things may have
changed; I truly don’t know. I don’t go on trains very
often, mainly because there aren’t that many in west Wales.
But how easy is it for them to keep their family, friends, luggage
et cetera with them? Because I remember a couple of cases, probably
about a couple of years ago now, where people were saying,
‘Yes, but there’s nowhere for my pals to sit, so
I’m sort of shoved at the back with the luggage.’
|
|
[160] Mr
Morgan: Our advice there would be to book the seats in advance
to ensure that you can all sit together. If you do it early enough,
then the seats around the dedicated wheelchair area should still be
free.
|
|
[161] Angela
Burns: Do you know what? I think that’s not a great
answer, though, if I’m honest, simply because, let’s
say, again, if I take west Wales as an example, we have a real
difficulty with public sector transport infrastructure. We also
have our hospitals and our doctors and our specialists being sucked
eastwards, so people are having to rely more and more on public
transport, and if you think I’m being tough on you, trust me,
when I get to the bus people, I’m going to be even
tougher.
|
|
[162] So, a lot of
these journeys aren’t able to be booked up, and people
don’t know that they’re going to be making those
journeys. Again, in my area, I have a lot of people with
disabilities coming around into that sort of area because
they’re just getting older. I’ve got a predominantly
older constituent base. So, it’s great if you can plan
things, but it’s a bit like—if you can plan and get
your ticket, if you can plan and do this. But disabled people are
no different to the rest of us—we do things on the spur of
the moment.
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|
[163] Mr
Morgan: If you wanted to turn up and go—if you speak to
the conductor, I’m sure they’d make every effort to
find you seats together and ask other people to move to make room
for that.
|
|
[164] Ms
Hickish: It does actually require the co-operation of other
passengers, and that’s part of the challenge. As somebody who
travels on the railway, basically, for a living—as you can
hear from my accent, I’m from Scotland, but additionally I
live in Milton Keynes, and I travel all over the country. I use all
of these services, and actually the challenge is quite generally
that the rest of the public don’t understand the needs of
disabled people. Quite often, they see disabled people they believe
are getting a benefit from being disabled. So, there is a challenge
there, to be fair to my colleague.
|
|
[165] Gareth
Bennett: You know when you do your training—
|
|
[166] Ms
Hickish: Yes.
|
|
[167] Gareth
Bennett: As this is an issue, how do you train the conductor,
for instance, to deal with those issues when they have to interact
with other passengers as well? Is there any training offered on
that?
|
|
[168] Ms
Hickish: We all do conflict training.
|
|
[169] Angela
Burns: We need that. [Laughter.]
|
|
[170] Mr
Graham: There’s a fairly comprehensive conflict avoidance
training programme that we put on.
|
|
[171] Ms
Hickish: Yes, it’s conflict avoidance rather than
training in conflict.
|
|
[172]
Mike Hedges: We’d pass the training on conflict one.
[Laughter.]
|
|
[173]
Mr Graham: So, all of our colleagues go through that, all of our
customer-facing colleagues, and there is a section in that training
session that deals with exactly what you’re talking about. At
the end of the day, you have to take a view of the individual
situation that you’re being faced with, as to whether or not
it’s the right thing to do for the disabled passenger as
well, because sometimes it can be a very difficult situation for
them as well.
|
|
[174] Angela Burns: Can I ask you: with your
experience, do you think there is a case, then, for certain seats
to be so designated? Are they so designated, or do you think that
actually perpetuates the myth that there’s a benefit
given?
|
|
[175] Ms Hickish: The
challenge is that with these seats, particularly on a busy train,
people believe that, if you haven’t booked it, and you want
your family, or perhaps even your personal assistant, to sit beside
you, they’re seen as being a benefit, because, actually, that
individual thinks that they got on the train first, so they deserve
the seat. So, there is a perceived benefit, and, yes, I’ve
had it happen. I’ve had to have someone with me
sometimes when I’ve not been well in myself—I
have a personal assistant with me. When I do, then I’ll find
myself quite often finding that that’s a challenging
situation, particularly where I’ve used turn-up-and-go, which
I do regularly. I travel a lot without being able to book because I
don’t always know when my meetings are.
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[176] Mike
Hedges: Yes. I think that Whizz-Kidz said that pre-planned was
good, but responsive—just turning up—as many of us do,
and as Angela has talked about, people travelling to the hospitals
et cetera—. We don’t know that somebody’s going
to have a car accident, so you don’t know that you’re
going to want to go and visit them in hospital. That’s where
there is a problem. You have talked partly about dealing with it,
but on buses, for example, they have seats that are disabled
priority. Have you thought of that?
|
|
[177] Ms
Hickish: Some trains already have that notice there.
|
|
[178] Mr Lloyd:
All of ours do.
|
|
[179] Mr
Graham: All of ours do.
|
|
[180] Ms
Hickish: All of Arriva’s do, and I think all of Great
Western—. There are some of the train operating companies
that don’t. I can’t say that nationally it’s
absolutely done, but regularly, I would say that probably about 80
per cent of the trains I’m on, it does actually say
it’s a priority.
|
|
[181] Mr
Graham: I was going to say that I think it’s quite
important to know that while we think it’s advisable to book
in advance, it’s not actually a requirement. The purpose of
asking people to book is to ensure that things are in place prior
to them travelling, to give them the best journey experience. Last
year, Great Western did about 300,000 disabled assists, of which
only 160,000 were booked. So, to give you some idea, it’s
about half and half. But it’s more about turning up, having
things available, having a colleague there to meet you, giving you
the best possible journey experience, and actually, you don’t
have to wait—
|
|
[182] Ms
Hickish: Absolutely.
|
|
[183] Mr
Graham: —because there’s someone there; whereas, if
you don’t book, you might.
|
|
[184] Mike
Hedges: Can I ask a question? This is, I think, only to
Arriva—unmanned stations. People going to unmanned stations:
what support can they expect to have at an unmanned station?
|
|
[185] Mr Lloyd:
So, if they turn up and go at an unmanned station, if they can,
obviously, get access to the platform, the conductor will support
them in their journey from the point that that train turns up until
the point they need to get off or change trains to another
destination. The conductors are fully trained in supporting people
with accessibility problems, whether they will be in a wheelchair
or just need support on the train. They just need to make
themselves known to the conductor when the train pulls into the
platform. If they can’t get access to that station,
there’s a helpline they can call, which goes through to our
control team, which will then—. As Joe mentioned earlier,
they will get accessible transport to a station that is
accessible.
|
|
[186] Mike
Hedges: Okay. Anyone else? Can I just squeeze one last question
in there? This is on people who have autism, for example, who have
to have somebody travelling with them. Are there any discounted
tickets for people who are travelling because they’re there
to support people?
|
|
[187] Mr
Morgan: Yes. If you have a disabled person’s railcard,
the person travelling with you has exactly the same discount. In
mid Wales we’ve been working closely with Derwen College in
Gobowen and Coleg Ceredigion in Aberystwyth—with people who
have autism—and they’ve produced this very good video,
which I can, again, share with you, that shows pupils who travel to
Derwen College, for example. Some are travelling from London with
Virgin Trains, changing at Birmingham, then at Shrewsbury to go to
Gobowen. It’s a very, very good video that shows people how
relatively straightforward it is. It’s about raising
awareness, and it’s our job to show people that we
shouldn’t take for granted that people know how to use a
train. We have to tell people where to find the information so that
they can make their own decisions.
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[188] Mr
Graham: I’d echo that from a Great Western perspective.
We work with Autism Alliance and Parkinson’s UK. As I said,
there’s a whole range of different bodies that we work with
in order to just provide the rail to the widest possible
community.
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[189] Angela
Burns: Can you take the film into evidence, Chair?
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[190] Mike
Hedges: Yes.
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[191] Mr
Morgan: You can have it, yes.
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[192] Angela
Burns: Thank you.
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[193] Mike
Hedges: I think that we took the other film into evidence. If
there are no further questions, can I thank you for coming along
this morning and for what you’ve told us? I think that what
you saw was the challenge for both you and us of getting the good
practice actually known by the people who want to be on the
receiving end of it. I also know that the answer, ‘It’s
on the website’, which is far too often an answer from far
too many organisations, does not necessarily mean that everyone
knows about it. So, I think it’s up to you to try and let
those people with disabilities know more about what they can
access, and it’s about us also helping to try and publicise
it as well. Thank you very much for coming.
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[194] Mr Lloyd:
Thank you.
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[195] Mr
Graham: Thank you.
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[196] Ms
Hickish: Thank you.
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[197] Mike
Hedges: Shall we move into private for five minutes?
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Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 09:55 a
10:06.
The meeting adjourned between 09:55 and
10:06.
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Ailymgynullodd y pwyllgor am
10:06.
The committee reconvened at 10:06.
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[198] Mike
Hedges: Can I welcome witnesses to the meeting, and inform them
that they are welcome to contribute in English or Welsh? If we
contribute in Welsh, you’ve got translation facilities in
front of you. You’ve had provided to you links to the video
and PowerPoint presented to the committee by Whizz-Kidz in advance
of this meeting, and you’ve had the opportunity to see that.
Can I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record?
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[199] Mr
Cursio: Simon Cursio, interim managing director, First
Cymru.
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[200] Ms
Ogbonna: Cynthia Ogbonna, managing director of Cardiff Bus.
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[201] Mr
Pockett: And I’m John Pockett. I’m the director for
Wales for the Confederation of Passenger Transport Cymru, the trade
association of the bus and coach industry.
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[202] Mike
Hedges: Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming
along. If I can start the questions, you’ve seen the list of
problems shown by Whizz-Kidz, and I’ve also been contacted by
people with sensory problems, both sight and hearing, relating to
difficulties with public transport. Having seen what Whizz-Kidz
have identified, how do you think you’re addressing them?
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[203] Mr
Cursio: A number of ways, I guess, in terms of sensory. Of
course, all bus services for First Cymru comply with the public
service vehicle accessibility regulations, which address both
destination blinds, front, side and rear, along with contrasting
handholds on the vehicle. In terms of notification to our drivers,
we use ‘safer journey cards’ and ‘better journey
cards’, which alert the driver to any, I guess, disability,
sometimes hidden to the driver, so that it can be dealt with
discreetly.
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[204] Ms
Ogbonna: In terms of Cardiff Bus, in terms of our buses, at
least 40 per cent of our vehicles are fitted with screens. They
also have next-stop destination on audio. All the buses we have
acquired in the last four years have had those
fitted—that’s the standard for us now. So, if
you’re partially sighted or you’re hard of hearing,
you’re able to understand where you are because this is
visual and it’s audio. In addition to that, all our vehicles
are DDA-compliant. You have ramps, so I think we are well-equipped
in that regard.
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[205] But more
importantly from our point of view is the interaction of our
drivers with passengers. So, our drivers are trained. Disability
awareness training is given to our drivers, and where we have
issues such as customers reporting incidents, which does happen
from time to time, we have a procedure about how we look at that to
deal with that, and we refer the drivers back to the training
school, because we have a training school. So, for us, the most
important point of this is the way our drivers, who are our
ambassadors, interact with and assist people who have all forms of
disability.
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[206] Mr
Pockett: I can’t really add because I think my colleagues
do the real work; I’m the pen pusher. But I think it would be
fair to say that the CPT does have codes of practice that we issue
to members, and we encourage members—I mean, we can’t
force members to follow things—but we’ve got various
codes of practice and good practice guides that we distribute and
encourage our members to follow.
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[207] Mike
Hedges: Could I say how very pleased I am with what I heard
from Cardiff Bus about telling people where they are both visually
and by sound? It’s not something that’s done by all
buses. Is it something that First Cymru are considering?
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[208] Mr
Cursio: Very much so, and particularly with audio. We have
worked for a number of years with associations on the
audio—the Royal National Institute of Blind People, for
example, and the Guide Dog Alliance—to provide audio on buses
and work with partially sighted organisations, or organisations
with an interest in partially sighted issues. Our fleet is not
fully audio equipped. However, all of the new vehicles of course
come with that functionality.
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[209] Mike
Hedges: I’m old enough to remember that bus drivers used
to shout out where they were, so that, when they got to a bus stop,
they’d say ‘Bernard Street’ or they’d say
‘The Knoll’ or they’d say ‘Parry’s
shop’. They used to shout it out so that passengers knew
where they were.
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[210] Mr
Cursio: And that still happens. Certainly, if a passenger
alerts our driver, discreetly or otherwise, to let them know where
they are, because, sometimes, they won’t always be familiar
with the area that they’re headed to, but that still
exists.
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[211] Mike
Hedges: Okay. Angela.
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[212] Angela
Burns: I wanted to talk about the results of the Paulley case,
which although it says that the bus company, or the bus driver, is
not obligated to remove a passenger who is in a disabled
person’s space, it does go on to say that you can, first of
all, request, and then up the request to make it sound like more of
a requirement. I just wondered how that works in practice, because
I should think that must be a very difficult ask of a bus driver.
And I also wondered if there was any way that it would ever leave
you open for an action by the person who’s basically
been—. It’s quite clear, isn’t it? It says that
he or she should consider some further steps to pressurise the
non-wheelchair user to vacate the space depending on the
circumstances. And, then, rephrasing the request as a
requirement.
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[213] I just wondered
how exposed you might feel by that, because you could make the
request sound like a requirement, but then you might end up being
sued or having action of some sort by the person who’s being
acted upon.
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[214] Ms
Ogbonna: I think, from our perspective, what we try and do is,
hopefully, in most cases, the customers, the passengers on the
buses, are usually quite amenable. And what we’ve instructed
our drivers to do is that they need to leave their cab and
physically go and make a request of the passenger, the occupier,
that somebody needs to come in. All they can do is try. What tends
to happen is that people around them will also help, so we are
depending on society and goodwill to be able to enforce that. But
if, ultimately, that doesn’t happen, we say they have to
radio the control room and explain to the wheelchair user why they
can’t allow them to board the bus because there’s no
space for them to come in.
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[215] But what we do
also say, in addition to that, is that if that is the last bus on
that route, our driver has a responsibility to radio the control
room, which is our office in the centre, and where
possible—it hasn’t happened, but these are the laid
down instructions—we’ll have to dispatch another
vehicle to go and collect that person, because if it’s the
last bus on that route, and it’s quite late at night, you
know there’s a likelihood there won’t be any other bus
coming that way. We have that additional follow-up to be able to do
that, but like I say, it hasn’t happened. We know that it is
difficult, but through training and development, and showing some
images, which we do, through our training programme, to see what it
feels like to be on the other side, our drivers are—. They
probably have a relative who is disabled, and they can empathise
with the difficulties that would happen. But we depend on society,
and people’s attitude to us, and how they assist us to be
able to enforce that, but it’s difficult.
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[216] Mr
Cursio: I would just add to that that before the Paulley case
came to the Supreme Court, the level of training for First Cymru
drivers, and I’m quite certain Cardiff Bus, and other members
of CPT, was such that they were trained to a reasonably high degree
to work with customers who may be in that space and encourage them
to move out for the wheelchair user. So, the judgment, of itself,
hasn’t necessarily altered the way that we would want our
driving staff to interact with customers who are in the space and
vacating it for a wheelchair user, but, in some ways, it does
actually enable them to be a little bit more assertive, if you
like, before having to resort to calling maybe a supervisor, or in
a worst case situation, the police, to resolve the matter.
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[217] Angela
Burns: Can I just ask one further question on that? Cynthia, I
think you said that you haven’t had that problem. Have you
ever had that problem on any of your buses, where somebody simply
refused to move for a disabled person? Does that happen often?
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10:15
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[218] Mr
Cursio: It does happen, but not often, thankfully, and I
couldn’t agree more with the point that Cynthia made. What we
tend to find in that situation is that other customers on the bus
will actually come to the aid of both the driver and the wheelchair
user. It resolves itself, usually without further incident.
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[219] Angela
Burns: Thank you.
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[220] Ms
Ogbonna: Can I comment on something there? Yes, we’ve had
situations where people might have refused, but what has not
happened is that we haven’t left somebody very late at night.
When we do have that situation, that hasn’t happened because
we run quite a frequent service, so there’s always the issue
that somebody will come and then that bus will come and pick that
person up.
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[221] Mike
Hedges: Gareth.
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[222] Gareth
Bennett: Thanks for your answers so far. I’m not sure
what the Paulley case was, but I thought there was an incident
about four months ago on a Cardiff bus, where, wasn’t there a
problem between someone with a pram and a wheelchair user and the
person with the pram wouldn’t vacate?
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[223] Angela
Burns: Yes.
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[224] Gareth
Bennett: Oh, that is the Paulley case, I’m sorry. Right;
that’s what we were talking about.
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[225] Ms
Ogbonna: It was a First bus, not a Cardiff Bus.
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[226] Gareth
Bennett: Oh, sorry, it was a national story. Right, okay, that
was the case. Right, you’ve spoken about that. But sometimes
there is a problem, which that case illustrates, where generally
the public do have goodwill, but that was a dispute between two
people and the pram users tend to sometimes think that
they’ve got priority, so, in that particular instance, it is
a little bit difficult. So, I don’t know what kind of
guidance you would give to drivers in that instance. Would there be
any or just the general guidance of trying to resolve it? What
happens if a pram user doesn’t then move?
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[227] Ms
Ogbonna: You always say to them to give the wheelchair user the
reason why they can’t board the bus. You explain to them why,
because if that person has flatly refused to vacate that space,
there’s nothing our driver can do really. Sometimes, they can
decide not to carry on with the journey. In doing that, you are
putting out all the other passengers, inconveniencing other
passengers, and it’s a difficult situation really. So, what
we advise them to do is let us know in the control room, which is
where we monitor the services on the network, and see whether there
is anything we can do to alleviate that. But, generally, it is
really a request, because the only person who can forcefully remove
a passenger is the police. So, our drivers can’t do that, and
they know that—they know where the limitation is.
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[228] Gareth
Bennett: In general, with your training, how does that operate
with the training of drivers regarding disability issues?
Obviously, you’ve got training procedures because I think you
mentioned those already. How does the training take place? Do
disability groups also feed into your training programmes?
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[229] Ms
Ogbonna: Yes, they do, in our particular case. We draw up a
programme or we get input from Cardiff council. What’s his
name now? Dr David Gravelle inputs into our training programme and
there are usually standard processes around the Disability
Discrimination Act 1995 and compliance and equality legislation
that they need to be able to comply with. So, we feed that
through.
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[230] The particular
training that we are carrying out right now has the blind institute
tactile image explaining to our drivers what it feels like to be
blind and to not have an idea about where you are. The example of
shouting out the bus stops was used and, sometimes, it was quite
telling, when you tell a driver, ‘Please can I stop at the
next stop?’ and the driver forgets about it because
they’ve been very busy and you lose your total orientation
when you stop by the stop that’s not yours. So, our drivers
listening to that powerful statement from the blind, reinforces the
fact that they need to be mindful about the fact that there are
people on their buses who are not totally able and to assist them.
So, the training that we give to our drivers constantly reinforces
that. That’s not to say that some drivers might not be
awkward because you have awkward people everywhere, but what we try
and do is try and reinforce the training and try to ensure that,
where possible, if they’ve done wrong, we bring them back to
the training school to reinforce the importance of what we’re
doing.
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[231]
Mike Hedges: Neil.
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[232]
Neil McEvoy: Perhaps
I should declare an interest, having
known Cynthia from my Cardiff council days, and I’ve met John
as well previously. I declare an interest as a Cardiff Bus user as
well. Every time I go on the bus, the drivers are really nice,
actually. I tend not to come across awkward drivers, although they
clearly exist sometimes.
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[233]
The train people talked about the orange
wallets. I wondered whether that was something that you do and
whether drivers had had them as well.
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[234] Ms
Ogbonna: Yes, I think so. First pioneered that.
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[235] Mr
Cursio: Yes, absolutely. We have two, in effect: a safer
journey wallet and a better journeys wallet, so as much quality as
accessibility.
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[236] Neil
McEvoy: Okay. In terms of the training and sign language, do
drivers have any qualifications in sign language? Is there a career
path for them to gain a qualification in that?
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[237] Mr
Cursio: Within First, we work with our trade union to offer
that as a lifelong learning opportunity. So, that is available to
drivers. It’s not part of our core driver training, whereas,
of course, disability awareness is. But that is available to us
where we work in conjunction with Unite the Union.
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[238] Ms
Ogbonna: As far as we’re concerned, I have to admit that
it’s not something that we have embraced yet, although we
might get there. Like Simon, we’ve focused on customer care,
disability discrimination, and all the other mandatory aspects of
it, and we haven’t got to the extent of looking at sign
language, but it’s something that we might begin to migrate
into. More and more, it’s beginning to become quite common in
society and people are beginning to look at that as a form of
disability. Previously, I don’t think we did, but now
we’re beginning to see that, and since we are quite an
inclusive service provider, we believe that everybody should be
able to use our service, irrespective of what form of disability or
ability they may have. So, it’s something that we’ll
been looking into, but it hasn’t formed part of our core
training programme yet.
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[239] Neil
McEvoy: Okay, thanks. That’s good news. Particularly
Cardiff, the bus station, the disability groups have been very
upset—especially the visually impaired community. They say
that their issues have not been taken into account. I was just
wondering what all your views were on that.
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[240] Ms
Ogbonna: I’m not sure, and the bus station is not ready
yet. We are in-between; we haven’t got a bus station right
now.
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[241] Neil
McEvoy: But the plan is there though, isn’t it? So,
you’ve got the plan on the table, which may or may not have
funding, and disability groups have big issues with it. I just
wondered what your positions were.
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[242] Mr
Pockett: I think, obviously, the bus station is the
responsibility of the local authority, and they plan it. Bus
operators, all of them that use Cardiff bus station—or did
use it and will use is—are obviously consulted, as are
disabled groups. But I think—and this isn’t passing the
buck—the ultimate thing goes back to the local authority. But
it’s important to have a partnership with everybody to ensure
that everybody is catered for, I think, and I think that’s
quite an important message.
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[243] Gareth
Bennett: There’s an issue, also, with the coach station,
because the coaches are currently accommodated at Sophia Gardens
and it’s not very accessible, itself, by public transport.
There’s not much in the way of services there, and as far as
I’m aware, it’s still uncertain as to whether there
will be a National Express coach station included in the upgraded
bus station when it’s completed. So, I wondered what your
thoughts on that were.
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[244] Mr
Pockett: I would obviously say, as the trade association, that
we would hope that there is provision for National Express and
Megabus and whoever else, but, again, I know National Express have
lobbied, and whether the lobby will be successful, we have our
fingers crossed. It is important, as you’ve highlighted. It
is very important because it was a good asset when National Express
went from that building—it was awful, I know, but it was
there, and it had a waiting room, and it was well used, and it was
pretty accessible as well, I think, generally.
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[245] Ms
Ogbonna: I can confirm from what I know—because
we’ve done some demonstrations to ensure that the turning
points of the bus station work—that there is provision, that
National Express will be allocated some of the stands. So, based on
the number of stands that are there, there is potentially an
allocation, I understand, for National Express. Like John said, I
do not know what the political issues or what the issues are around
that, but from the indications, we believe that National Express
will be given some stands.
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[246] Gareth
Bennett: Okay, thanks.
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[247] Angela
Burns: I just wanted to actually talk about the infrastructure,
very slightly, and about the buses themselves. Are all the buses
now, in your fleets—do they all have drop-down access and
hydraulic ups and downs, and are the drivers prepared and happy to
deploy those aids?
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[248] Mr
Cursio: Absolutely. Absolutely.
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[249] Ms
Ogbonna: Ours have been DDA compliant for a very long time. We
have ramps. As long as the infrastructure is there, so the kerb
cuts are there, the kerbs by the bus stops are there, it is part of
the duty that they have to deploy the ramp. It’s been in
legislation for a very long time.
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[250] Angela
Burns: Are they normally deployed, Cynthia?
|
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[251] Ms
Ogbonna: Very few of them are. Where you have to use the hook
sometimes, it’s easier to be able to pull that. Most of them
now are not—a few of them are, except where drivers have
medical reasons, which we will be informed about, and they have
medical exemption because of back pain or whatever—.
Otherwise they should—they are expected to deploy the
ramp.
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[252] Mike Hedges: We’ve also got the
opposite, haven’t we? I know in Swansea there are raised
kerbs, so that people can go straight on without anything needing
to be deployed. Do you think that’s a better solution than
having to lower or raise the ramp? Do you think we ought to have
more of them? Do you think that more ought to be done to stop cars
parking alongside them, which stops buses from picking people
up?
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[253]
Ms Ogbonna: Yes.
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[254] Mr Cursio: I think, Mike, that’s the
real issue—car parking and enforcement of infringements in
bus stops. Whether the bus stop is built out into the road to
enable the vehicle not to lower, and for wheelchair users and pram
users to just roll on and roll off—. But that is the real
challenge for every bus operator. I can safely say that for
Cynthia’s company and everybody else’s.
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[255]
Ms Ogbonna: Yes.
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[256]
Mr Cursio: In terms of what’s better or worse, I think
there’s a place for both, but enforcement is the key for us,
because that enables more punctual journeys, and our customers get
to where they need to be when they should be there.
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[257]
Mr Pockett: I think it’s a nonsense, really, that bus
companies have spent money on upgrading their fleet, local
authorities have spent lots of money on raising kerbs, and
it’s all spoiled by selfish car owners. You tell them. I use
the bus regularly between Cardiff and the centre of the universe,
as I call it—Pontypridd. The number of times that,
particularly now there are some difficulties, where car drivers
pull in and sometimes I’ll say, ‘You’re in a bus
stop here’—usually you get a torrent of abuse or
whatever, or ‘So what?’, but I feel it’s my duty
on behalf of my members to point out what they’re doing. Even
somebody with a bad gait, if I can say that, it makes it difficult
for them. They’ve got to get off the kerb and then
they’ve got to get up on the thing, just because of
one—car drivers think they can park anywhere.
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[258]
Mr Cursio: I think that’s the real-world problem, if you
like—the accidents that that causes for people getting on or
getting off buses, particularly if somebody has got shopping or is
a little infirm, or has a walking stick or whatever it might be.
That does lead to accidents as a result of indiscriminate parking
and lack of enforcement—not enough enforcement.
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[259]
Mike Hedges: At one time, Swansea council put some of their
parking enforcement people on the buses when people were parked
there to book individuals who were parking there. Did that
work?
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[260]
Mr Cursio: It’s still available today. So, police
officers, police community support officers and traffic wardens are
able to travel free of charge on our services to help us and to
help them go about their business within the community. Does it
work? Yes, it can, particularly in terms of being able to, if you
like, enforce a notice on parked cars. Does it happen often? Not
particularly, I don’t think, no.
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[261]
Mike Hedges: Angela.
|
|
[262]
Angela Burns: Just two very quick questions from me. The first is:
can you take more than one wheelchair user on a bus?
|
|
[263]
Mr Cursio: No.
|
|
[264] Ms Ogbonna: No.
|
|
[265] Angela Burns: It’s only one. So,
they can’t take a wheelchair friend along with them if they
belong to a club or a group or anything.
|
|
[266] Mr Cursio: No.
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[267] Ms Ogbonna: No.
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|
[268] Angela Burns: My second question is:
we’ve talked a lot about physical disability. Are your
drivers trained in how to be understanding of people with mental
health issues who also have a disability, such as autistic people,
people with Down’s syndrome, et cetera, because their ability
to communicate with the world is very different? It’s easy to
spot someone in a wheelchair—it’s less easy to spot
that the person they’re talking to is somewhere on the
autistic spectrum.
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|
[269]
Mr Cursio: I think that’s where the orange wallets and the
journey cards really come into their own, because they provide a
level of independence and a level of discretion for the disabled
person who has, arguably, a hidden disability to highlight that to
our drivers. Within the certificate of professional competence that
each driver has to pass now, awareness of these issues is very much
part of that training, which is reinforced every two
years.
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|
[270]
Mike Hedges: I was very fortunate to attend dementia training with
FirstGroup in Swansea a couple of years ago now. Have all of your
drivers gone through such dementia training?
|
|
10:30
|
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[271] Mr
Cursio: Through the Driver Certificate of Professional
Competence programme, Mike—yes.
|
|
[272] Mike
Hedges: Has it helped?
|
|
[273] Mr
Cursio: Unquestionably. When I review the level of my
complaints or the type of complaint that comes through my business,
the nature of those types of complaints, sometimes from family
members or friends, not necessarily the person
themselves—they have reduced significantly.
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[274] Mike
Hedges: Has Cardiff Bus also undertaken dementia training for
its drivers?
|
|
[275] Ms
Ogbonna: The kind of training—. We have all sorts of
training. Sorry, can you just—? What type of service?
|
|
[276] Mike
Hedges: Dementia.
|
|
[277] Ms
Ogbonna: Yes, dementia—we are getting into that, and that
is wrapped up with mental health training and the point that I made
earlier about the fact that our drivers are now trained to
understand that disability is not just about physical disability.
So, there is that awareness, and the orange wallet and different
elements of that are looked at. So, they are going through the
process now of trying to include a mental health training aspect in
their training.
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|
[278] Mr
Pockett: Because my colleagues are at the coalface, as it were,
I don’t think I can give you any help on that.
|
|
[279] Mike
Hedges: Do you think it’s a good idea to give dementia
training?
|
|
[280] Mr
Pockett: Absolutely, yes—sorry. Yes, certainly, I think
any extra training is helpful. I’m a little deaf on this
side—this is why I’m here. I think we heard that
earlier on—people can see if you’ve got a white stick
or if you’re in a wheelchair. If you’re
deaf—I’m not, I’m okay, but that’s why
I’ve got a lot of empathy with people who are deaf. People
shout at you, and it’s not about shouting, it’s being
aware. I think it’s entirely for society, really,
Mike—it is an attitude approach.
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|
[281] Mike
Hedges: Well, I gave a short debate in the Assembly four or
five years ago now on hearing loss, which I called the hidden
disability. You can’t tell by looking at somebody whether
they’re deaf or whether they’re not. You can see a
guide dog, you can see the white stick, you can see the wheelchair,
but you can’t see if someone is deaf, and you cannot tell by
just looking at somebody whether they’re suffering from
dementia. That’s where the difficulties come in, isn’t
it?
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[282] Mr
Pockett: Absolutely. People very often think you’re
stupid, and you’re anything other than that.
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[283] Mike
Hedges: Yes.
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[284] Mr
Cursio: Within First Cymru, as well, I’d just like to add
that we operate a series of customer panels, and sat on some of
those panels are people with hidden disabilities, if you like, and
some with visible disabilities. They help inform, at a management
level, some of the challenges that our customers will face.
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[285] Mike
Hedges: A question for John now: are we talking to the wrong
people? Are we talking to the good bus operators—the ones who
do this disability training and those who do work for disabled
people? Are there other operators out there who pay less attention
to it? Are we getting what the good people are doing, but not
necessarily what some of the less good people are doing?
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[286] Mr
Pockett: I think that’s a very, very fair point.
I’d like to think that any decent operator is a member of the
Confederation of Passenger Transport. It’s a voluntary
organisation—you don’t have to join, but anybody can
apply for a licence. You’re right: I think you can get
operators. We don’t want them—we expect our members to
abide by the code of practice and to do things properly. But yes,
certainly, and I think that that is a matter then for the
regulatory authorities to look to, and maybe to become more
involved.
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[287] Mr
Cursio: I would just also say, Mike, that, from 1 March 2018,
all operating companies—all bus companies—are obliged
to provide disability training as part of the DCPC programme. So,
that, I think, will help raise the standards in the medium
term.
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[288] Mike
Hedges: I think that is important. One of the weaknesses we
have, as Assembly committees, is that we often get the good
providers—the people who are doing everything that
we’re looking for—and there are some bad providers out
there who we never get to talk to. Perhaps I ought to, like Neil
did, declare an interest—I know Simon from FirstGroup in
Swansea, and I know what a good job FirstGroup are doing in terms
of training and support, and what a helpful bus company they can
be. But I also know that there are other bus companies doing all
sorts of things, which I will not name, that are not necessarily as
good at providing support for people with disabilities.
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[289] Mr
Pockett: I think the difficulty you have then, Mike, is that
those people don’t want to come to things. They want to keep
their heads below the parapet because of some of the poor practices
that you’ve highlighted.
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[290] Mike
Hedges: I know that Simon talked about this training practice
that has to be brought in. Do you know how that’s going to be
policed in order to ensure that people have done the
half-day’s training on dementia, that they have done a half
day or day’s training on dealing with people with sensory
loss, and that they know about lowering and raising the means of
getting on the bus? It’s great, and we have to have this
mandatory training, but do we know how it’s going to be
policed?
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[291] Mr
Cursio: Well, all of the training providers for the provision
of DCPC— Driver Certificate of Professional
Competence—cards have to be reviewed and they will be
assessed. The cards themselves—each driver has to carry those
cards and they’re only issued once they have passed that
level of training. So, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, for
example, will typically check a driver’s card when the
enforcement officer boards the vehicle. So, I guess it’s done
in a couple of ways—both the training provision and also on
the vehicle.
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[292]
Mike Hedges: Not that I intend to, but, if I bought a bus tomorrow
and I employed somebody to drive that bus, how would people make
sure that I’d employed somebody who had that level of
competence?
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[293] Mr
Cursio: They would only have the driver CPC card had they
passed that training, and, of course, their bus licence card as
well.
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[294] Ms
Ogbonna: Can I just add that the models that you take are
dependent on the company? There are no mandatory criteria that you
must do certain models. All that is important is that you have a
card that qualifies you to drive. So, the companies choose which
models they want to deliver. But, having chosen the models you want
to deliver, there’s an assessment—an on-the-spot
assessment—to make sure that the training that you’ve
put in place is what you’re actually delivering and the way
you are delivering it in the classroom environment.
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[295] Mike
Hedges: Do you want to add anything, John?
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[296] Mr
Pockett: I would just say that I think that that is for
whoever’s going to take on the regulatory role, and they need
to set the standard. We want consistent standards for everybody so
that everybody complies, and that that is properly enforced.
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[297]
Mike Hedges: I think that’s a question we’ve got for
the Minister when the Minister comes in. If there are no further
questions, can I thank you for coming along? I’ve certainly
found it enlightening. Can I just thank you for your attendance? A
copy of the transcript will be sent to you to check for any factual
inaccuracies, and I’ll just, again, thank you very much for
coming. Can we have a five minute wash-up again?
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Daeth y cyfarfod i ben am 10:37.
The meeting ended at 10:37.
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