School children should receive free bus travel before pensioners?

[Itchthescratch]

My child is starting a school where it will cost around £2k for bus travel. This school is local and one of the closest schools to us. The other schools close to us are much worse in terms of opportunities and academic outcomes. I can afford the bus fare easily but I worry that some poorer families will really struggle to send their children to the higher achieving school because of the cost.

I understand that there isn't an endless pot of money but surely it would make sense to give school children free travel ahead of other groups like pensioners? School children are statistically much more likely to suffer from poverty (child poverty is almost double pensioner poverty)and it seems crazy that we aren't supporting social mobility whilst we let all pensioners travel for free on buses.

You clearly have no understanding of how pensioner passes work or you wouldn't be saying this at all.

Is a pensioner who drives, applies for a pensioner pass, the cost of the pass is minimal. The local bus company only then gets paid per swipe of the pass, there is not a set annual figure per pass.

Most people who drive, regardless of age, will go to great lengths to avoid using a bus, that doesn't change with retirement. So in retirement the only time pensioners tend to ditch the car for the bus is when parking costs are cost prohibitive, i.e. hospital visits etc. The cost for this is minimal and would not release sufficient funds to enable free bus passes for all kids.

Removing pensioner bus passes wouldn’t magically produce £2k per child for school transport. It would simply create new costs elsewhere (health, social care, carers, GP visits, isolation‑related decline).

I am not arguing that there shouldn't be help available for school transport costs, just that saying the trade off or sacrifice is the retired persons bus pass - is not rational.

No, you don't understand.

Pensioner and disabled bus passes cost the government £1 billion a year. It isn't minimal

Not every child would need a £2k bus pass. Many don't use the bus at all.

Both groups will have wider cost ramifications if you made them pay for their travel. No analysis suggests that the long term wider costs are higher for old people versus children.

I take the bus a lot, I live in London.
What I notice is that it isn’t the well off pensioners getting the buses, far from it. So I don’t think you need to worry about that too much.

There are also ppl on pension credit who DID work all their lives and lost their private pensions through companies going bust or fraud did Robert Maxwell pass you by. because the ppl affected may well be claiming Pension Credit now as they will be old enough.

It's too much to expect the majority to look up, instead of looking down.

A lot of the wealthy pensioners I know take the bus. I think it's very area dependent.

Maybe we just believe the best evidence that wealthy taxes don't work.

Ah, so now we are not just targeting pensioners but the disabled too!

The cost of school transport is actually higher than the figure you’re quoting for concessionary travel. Local authorities spend around £1.4 billion a year on home‑to‑school transport - £1.1bn of that is SEND transport, which is statutory and often involves taxis or minibuses. Only about £0.3bn is mainstream school buses.

That’s why comparing it to pensioner bus passes doesn’t work. Concessionary travel is a usage‑based reimbursement, the £1bn you’re quoting is simply the total cost of journeys actually taken. School transport is a fixed contracted cost that councils must pay whether the bus is full or empty.

Adding disabled people into the comparison doesn’t change the structure of the funding. SEND transport is legally required and vastly more expensive than concessionary travel. Removing pensioner bus passes wouldn’t suddenly produce £1.4bn to cover school transport, it would just create new pressures in health and social care.

You’re quoting the headline figure (£1bn) without understanding what it represents. That number is not a fixed pot handed out to pensioners. It’s the total annual reimbursement for actual journeys taken. If fewer people travel, the cost falls. If more people travel, it rises. It’s a usage‑based cost, not a guaranteed budget.

That’s why comparing it to school transport doesn’t work. School transport is a fixed contracted cost - the council has to pay for the bus whether it’s full or empty. Concessionary travel is variable - the cost only occurs when someone actually boards a bus.

You’re also assuming that older people “can just walk”, but a very large proportion of people at State Pension age (currently 66 and rising) have mobility issues, chronic conditions, or have stopped driving. If you remove their ability to travel independently, the cost doesn’t disappear - it simply moves into other budgets:

• more GP and hospital appointments missed
• more social care involvement
• more isolation‑related decline
• more falls and emergency callouts
• more pressure on carers and family
• more demand on community and voluntary services

So yes, both groups have wider cost ramifications but removing pensioner travel creates immediate, measurable pressure on health and social care.
And again, the £2k school transport cost you’re talking about is a local authority contracting issue, not something caused by pensioners using buses after 9:30am. These two schemes don’t compete in the direct way you’re insisting.

If you want to argue for subsidised school transport, that’s a perfectly valid discussion - but it sits within education and local transport policy. It isn’t solved by making older people housebound and now apparently you are adding the disabled to the pot too.

Surely pensioners on massive private pensions don’t take the bus?
It’s £3 maximum a day for 21 and under where I live!
My DP’s don’t drive now in their late 80’s! Don’t buy enough food a week for online shop even if they did online shopping!
Getting out and about on the bus is the only exercise my DM does!
Plus my DF has to go with her for support!
Neither worked were you got a company pension!

But pensioners can’t get the bus until after rush hour. I don’t understand your dislike of pensioners getting a bus pass. Many who have a car don’t actually use the bus. You will be old one day. There’s lots of people who are borderline & get no financial support. Someone on not much less could be getting pension credit, rent paid, discounted council tax. If you start means testing bus passes some will struggle to go anywhere.

It’s your choice to send your child to a school which requires an expensive bus.

It's great isn't it? Now 'super rich, nasty, moaning, young person hating' old people shouldn't get buses free either.

There is no end to the ways people will think up new ways to denigrate an entire generation.
What next? Banning us from shops so we dont buy things the younger generation want? I mean we're all so loaded we don't need to shop anyway. We all order in from Fortnum and Mason

Or maybe if parents like yourself started sending their children to the "shit" school then it wouldn't be so shit any more because there would be bright kids with supporting parents there would would push for changes...

But YABU. I also pay a huge amount for a bus to a decent school for my DC but decided it is worth it. Like you I also have the option of a free bus to my nearest school.

It's a choice.

There isn't a separate figure available for pensioner passes alone but you can assume it's a reasonable proportion of the £1 billion. That's the only reason I referenced disabled people as I can't find a standalone figure for OAPs. It's the amount of money funding free travel passes for these groups is costing the government. You weirdly think I don't understand this when I quite obviously do.

Sen transport is equally irrelevant to this debate.

What you don't understand is that only 11% of pupils take school-only buses. These are the only buses that are fixed contract. All other journeys taken by school children will be variable in the exact same way that OAPs are now. Also, lots of the school-only buses will be included in the £0.3 billion the government is already on the hook for due to distance from school.

No, it doesn't sit within education or local transport anymore than old people's bus funding sits within social care or local transport. The English National Concessionary Travel Scheme would be just as relevant for funding bus passes for children as it is for finding passes for other groups now.

3 miles is a really long way for kids to walk, particularly in Scotland in the freezing cold, pissing rain. That’s an hour walking for someone as short as me, as many young kids are. How many of us walk an hour to work every morning.

2 miles is too long for little kids.

I'd rather we pay for bus passes for someone elderly who may not be able to walk the distance to their GP or the supermarket.
In general children are much more capable of walking long distances. As for sending them to school further away because they're better that's parental choice and ultimately some children are going to miss out on attending the best schools. Places are limited, giving free busses to all children isn't going to enable them all to go to the best schools.

I don't have the option of a free bus to my local school.

I also think your a hypocrite. How dare you suggest poor people should send their kids to the local school to improve that school whilst you use your money to avoid doing this for your kids. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be more help for school fares, I'm just opposed to the OPs idea that it should be at the expense of Pensioners losing bus passes. Its not the fair trade off they imply.

Sometimes it's best fit and not just best. In my local area we have some specialist schools starting in year 9. We have some very academic schools and some that are more vocational etc. Do poor kids just have to go to wherever is closest whilst their rich peers get to pick and choose?

PrettyPickle....I admire your valiant efforts to explain this , which you have done in a clear and articulate manner... OP just cant seem to get it 😕

You’re still treating the £1bn headline figure as if it’s a fixed pot handed out to pensioners and disabled people, and that’s not what it represents. It’s the total annual reimbursement for actual journeys taken. If fewer people travel, the cost falls. If more people travel, it rises. It’s a usage‑based cost, not a guaranteed budget.

That’s why comparing it to school transport doesn’t work. School transport is a fixed contracted cost, the council has to pay for the bus whether it’s full or empty. Concessionary travel is variable - the cost only occurs when someone actually boards a bus.

Adding disabled people into the mix doesn’t change that. You’re quoting the combined figure because you can’t find a standalone number for older people, but the mechanism is the same: operators are reimbursed per journey. It’s not a lump sum sitting in a pot waiting to be reallocated.

On school transport: the fact that only 11% of pupils use dedicated school buses doesn’t make the rest “variable in the exact same way”. Children using public buses still rely on commercial routes, which are planned, contracted and subsidised differently. And the biggest cost in school transport - around £1.1bn a year - is SEND transport, which is statutory and often involves taxis or minibuses. That doesn’t disappear because a child has a free bus pass.

You’re trying to argue that the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme could simply be expanded to children, but that ignores the reality that ENCTS is designed around off‑peak travel, commercial routes, and usage‑based reimbursement.

School transport is built around peak‑time travel, guaranteed provision, and fixed contracts..i.e buses have to run on school routes because of the schools as part of public transport contracts whether they are full or empty and so someone has to pay for that. They are not interchangeable schemes

Of course I get it. She thinks all school journeys are on school-only buses and she thinks that the huge bill it would create to fund all these journeys could only be funded by specific departments that aren't related to the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme that's funds all other free passes. I understand what she's saying, I just think she is wrong.

You clearly don't understand, your post reinforces this

Yes that's true too but if they worked all their lives they would have full state pension and not be able to claim pension credit either. But you are right as pension credit also includes carers, disabled people etc. either way do not fair to means test it.

Right, for the last time

The billion pounds is the actual cost to the government of the journeys taken using disability and OAP passes. This figure can change depending on the number of journeys taken in a year but this is the current effective cost of the passes.

You are unable to distinguish between school-only buses and children using other buses to get to school. The former is a small minority of children, the latter is children using commercial routes like everyone else. This doesn't place any additional contracted cost on the public purse unless the child uses the bus in which case the bus company will be reimbursed like they are in the current scheme for OAP/Disabled passes. Do you understand this? The minority of children using buses involves fixed contracts.

In this context the ENTCS could be used as it will be used in 89% of cases for usage based reimbursement and it is already being expanded to include peak travel for disabled people.

SEND transport is not relevant to this discussion as it is the equivalent of disabled adult transport which isn't what this thread is about.

Ok as someone that can see the difference break it down in a few sentences what I have misunderstood