Alternative model to deliver the School Crossing Patrol Service

[Angela Redmond]

I’m fact finding to provide a reasoned commentary to a ‘hypothetical’ scenario for an alternative model to deliver the School Crossing Patrol Service. Could service provision be outsourced / delegated to Community Groups, in locations where the County Council are unable to recruit a permanent patrol, designating them as the operating authority?

Before any resources are given to investigate the feasibility in depth, we need to understand if we [the County Council] can delegate SCP provision to a Community Group, given the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (Sections 26 – 28) gives ‘Appropriate Authorities’ (defined as county councils, metropolitan district councils, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the Common Council of the City of London) the power to appoint SCPs to help children cross the road on their way to or from school, or from one part of a school to another, between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:30 pm.

Section 270 of the Transport Act 2000, which came into force on 30 January 2001, amended the 1984 Regulations to allow SCPs to operate “at such times as the Authority thinks fit”. Therefore, SCPs may now work outside the hours of 8.00 am to 5.30pm and can stop traffic to help anyone (child or adult) to cross the road.

My personal interpretation of the legislation distinguishes that only ‘Appropriate Authorities’ have the power to appoint SCP, and local community groups would not have legal jurisdiction.

I’m looking for your opinions and professional steer on this. Could a Community SCP service be a possibility? We [the County Council] are unable to staff a particular location, whether that’s because of recruitment or budget issues, for example. Step forward a Community Group who elect to take on the responsibility. Legally, can they?

[Kendrick Hourd]

Road Safety GB has a School Crossing Patrol Guide which was co-authored by one of my team who is on their national advisory board. There are various problems, but the main one was the delegation of powers. I think you can delegate, but you can’t offload the responsibility to supervise and remain responsible for issues and the quality/safety of delivery which is half the job so I doesn’t really save money. The other problem is that it costs around £15k to set up a site (traffic management signs, lining, dropped kerbs, recruitment et al) and maybe £5k a year to staff/equip/operate/supervise it. Schools funding is generally ringfenced to the school and its grounds, not the highway, so they normally don’t have any funds to take on the service and wouldn’t want to responsibility either. Community Groups I suspect would be in the same boat. There’s a lot more to training, equipping and running the SCP service than people think. Safeguarding and DBS checks are a biggie.

The link to the RSGB advice is here: https://roadsafetygb.org.uk/members-area/school-crossing-patrol/ , but particularly check out the ‘Survival Guide’ link near the bottom of the page that discusses all the issues.

Incidentally, I’ve just read in it that ‘appropriate authorities’ are defined asAppropriate authorities are defined as:
• Outside Greater London – county councils, unitary authority, metropolitan district
• For the City of London this is the Common Council of the City
• London Borough Councils
• In Scotland a council under section 2 of the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act
1994

I don’t know which Act this is from, but have a read. I’m not sure if you need to be an RSGB Member to access it.

Also, we tailor our SCP site times to the flow from/to each school and some sites are not adjacent the school so it takes longer to reach. We used the allowance to alter times to the full in lockdown when we had staggered departure/arrival times all over the place!

[Colin Savage]

Interesting idea. I suspect not.
Hypothetically, if recruitment is the issue, even if a Council could delegate to another organisation it still wouldn’t resolve the issue of not being able to recruit a Patrol

If budget is the issue.. How would a Community Group fund a SCP Service?

Devon County Council has an offer for schools of a Volunteer School Crossing Marshal for Sites that do not meet the funding criteria for a Patrol but the school feel the need for crossing support and have a volunteer. Email us if you would like more information
crossingpatrols@devon.gov.uk

[David Weller]

Hi Angela,

Within the Kent County Council area, we have several schools that fund their own patrol, and one patrol is sponsored by the local parish council who pay the school to employ the patrol. We recently reviewed our old SLA with the schools in this situation employing an external legal firm to research and interpret exactly the question you have asked. This has resulted in a far more comprehensive SLA that we require the schools to sign and show proof before we engage in training, monitoring, risk assessing, etc. The summary of the legal advice was that under the circumstances outlined above, their professional opinion was that this was possible, especially for the sponsored school crossing patrol; effectively it means rather than us complete all the necessary recruitment, emphasis is on the school with our SLA enabling us the train and, subsequently, authorise the individual(s) to stop traffic. We do offer our assistance in terms of interview process to ensure we are going to be training appropriate staff. Currently we do this at no additional cost to the schools, but has enabled many to retain a patrol that we would not have funded.
Any costs in establishing the site e.g. signage, drop kerbs, etc that were required would have to be funded by the thirty, as would any costs of uniform etc.
Regards,
David

[James Gibson]

Hi Angela,

Great question and great advice has already been posted back. This is where the Knowledge Centre works so well!

Kendrick is spot on to signpost you to the information in the Members’ Area of the RSGB website.

Also if needed after your fact finding, RSGB SCP national advisors are listed in the Help & Advice section of the website: https://roadsafetygb.org.uk/help-advice/

One additional point that I’ll add is that unlike other examples of external funding that are a one-off cost, for example for a vehicle activated sign or piece of equipment, the costs associated with a patrol need to be found each year which I know in some areas has been a challenge.

Best regards,
James Gibson
Executive Director RSGB

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