Kent County Council says a £35 rise is needed to keep its student bus pass scheme sustainable. But its own figures show the increase lands more than four times harder, proportionately, on low-income families — and the council’s own scrutiny papers say the flat-rate approach hasn’t been properly justified.
The school bus pass is one of those council policies that doesn’t stay in County Hall. It ends up in kitchen drawers, school bags, bank statements and awkward family conversations before the new term starts: can we afford it, can we manage without it, and who gets the child to school if the bus pass becomes too much?
KCC’s decision is simple on the surface. For 2026/27, fee-paying Kent Travel Saver users face a £35 increase. A full-cost pass rises from £580 to £615. A low-income pass rises from £135 to £170. In cash terms, the rise is equal. In real life, it isn’t.
The full-cost pass rises by just over 6%. The low-income pass rises by almost 26%. That is the story in one glance: the same £35 rise becomes a much heavier burden when it is loaded onto the smaller household budget.
That is why Decision 26/00020, taken by Cllr Peter (Pothole) Osborne (pictured), KCC’s Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, has been called in to the new Scrutiny Committee on Thursday, 11 June. The call-in was submitted by Cllrs, Rob Yates (Green), Antony Hook (Lib Dem), Paul Thomas (Restore Britain) and Mark Hood (Green), and Democratic Services has ruled it valid.
This is also where KCC Leader Linden Kemkaran’s own words become useful. In her first speech at County Hall, KCC’s official news service quoted her as saying: “We will simply put the people of Kent at the heart of everything we do.” The Travel Saver decision is a neat test of that promise, because “the people of Kent” includes the low-income parents now facing the largest relative rise.
KCC does have a financial argument. The Kent Travel Saver is discretionary, supports pupils aged 11 to 16, and helps children access school or work-based learning across a county where distance and school choice can make transport difficult. The council says costs have risen because operator reimbursement has increased and because more pupils are using the low-income and free-pass categories.
For 2026/27, KCC puts gross scheme costs at £15.44m. Application fee income is estimated at £8.55m, Government Bus Fund support at £2.11m, and the net cost to KCC at £4.79m. The £35 increase is expected to raise £575,000, while the Record of Decision says the overall subsidy to passholders is £6.89m.
So this is not a fake budget pressure. But the scrutiny question is not whether buses cost money. It is whether KCC properly tested the fairest way to raise the money before choosing a flat increase that hits low-income families hardest in percentage terms.
Chart 2 asks the missing question using KCC’s own figures. If the low-income pass had risen by the same percentage as the full-cost pass, the increase would have been about £8.15, not £35. Across KCC’s stated 3,100 low-income passholders, the gap is just over £83,000 — about 0.54% of the £15.44m gross scheme cost.
That does not prove KCC should have chosen that option. It proves councillors and residents should have been shown the comparison. The call-in says the papers do not properly explain the balance between affordability and financial sustainability, do not compare current and future costs and revenues clearly enough, and do not show a wider range of pricing structures such as proportionate or percentage-based increases.
Democratic Services has picked up that flaw. Its report says reasons one to five of the call-in raise a reasonable concern that limited information and explanation was provided to evidence full consideration of the different impact on users from a flat-rate increase. It also says there is no substantive justification for progressing a flat-rate approach rather than a tiered or proportionate model.
The most revealing phrase in the decision report is “broadly affordable”. KCC says the rise keeps passes broadly affordable for the majority of families while balancing customer affordability with the council’s financial sustainability. But “majority” leaves an obvious question hanging: what about the minority for whom it is not affordable?
That gap matters because the scheme is about access to education. If the pass becomes too expensive for some families, the risk is not just a smaller number on a spreadsheet. It is missed journeys, more car dependence where families have cars, more pressure where they do not, and another cost landing in the same households already squeezed hardest.
The Equality Impact Assessment does not resolve the issue. It says consultation was “Not Applicable” because this was an operational cost decision without an ability to offer alternative models. Yet the call-in is precisely about whether those alternative models should have been considered before the decision was made.
The main report is blunter still. It says some passholders or families affected by the increase are likely to have protected characteristics, but that “there is no mitigation for this implication”. That is candid. It is not a comfort blanket.
There is also a coastal sting. The call-in says KCC data shows more than 59% of low-income bus users come from the Marmot region, including Swale, Folkestone & Hythe, Canterbury, Thanet, Dover and Ashford. These are the very places where inequality, poor health outcomes and coastal deprivation are supposed to be policy priorities.
The Scrutiny Committee cannot overrule the Cabinet Member. The decision has already been taken; call-in pauses implementation, but does not cancel or reset it. The committee can make comments, require reconsideration, or in the most serious cases refer the matter to Full Council.
That makes Thursday’s meeting a daylight test. Can KCC show why a flat £35 rise was fairer than a percentage or tiered increase? Can it explain what “broadly affordable” means in pounds, families and likely take-up? Can it publish the modelling behind the choice?
If it can, the workings should be put on the table. If it cannot, the decision should go back. Because “putting the people of Kent at the heart of everything” is easy to say from the front of County Hall. It is harder to prove when the poorest fee-paying families are being asked to absorb the steepest rise.
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