EVALUATION OF THE SEPT 2026 NYC MODEL

The Post-Implementation Review (PIR) represents a quiet, fundamental pivot away from the original July 2024 NYC model. Rather than conducting a true post-implementation audit—which would compare the 2024 assumptions against actual outturn—the Council abandoned the original methodology entirely and substituted a new construct ("Model 3").

Then (July 2024): The July 2024 model attempted to forecast cash savings by estimating cohort behaviour—specifically guessing that ~70% of parents stranded in the catchment gap would privately fund their own transport, with sensitivities run from 20% to 100%.

Now (September 2026 PIR, Section 6): The Council quietly discarded the 70% behavioural mechanism. It replaced it with a top-down, gross entitlement loss rate observed in Year 1 (a single bulk admissions round) and projected that forward across seven academic years.

The New Formula: The PIR calculates savings by multiplying the projected net reduction in eligible pupils by an assumed average cost of £2,078 per pupil per year (Section 6.8).

How £2,078 Was Derived (Sections 6.1–6.3): Officers took daily contract costs divided by occupied seats (not vehicle capacity) for June 2025 and May 2026, multiplied by 190 days, and adjusted for 3.4% CPI inflation.

The PIR formally inserts an annual deduction line for appeals: 8 pupils per year, costed at £16,624 per year (£116,368 cumulative across 7 cohorts) (Section 6.9, Table).

The PIR does not answer the fundamental audit question: Was the Council's July 2024 model right or wrong? By simply drawing a line under it and introducing a new calculation, the Council avoided having to admit that the 2024 premise was flawed.

A glaring mathematical contradiction exists between the PIR's financial model and its own narrative evidence base:

When Stage 1 and Stage 2 determinations are combined, actual upheld appeals in Year 1 exceeded 40 cases. The financial model assumes an appeal friction rate that its own narrative data proves is understated by a factor of five.

The PIR reports a year-one financial saving of £317,588 (Table 6.9). However:

• Section 4.14.6 reveals that Paid Travel Permit (PTP) income rose from £643k to £828k—an increase of £185,000 (+29%).
• Section 4.14.13 confirms £155,000 of that was generated directly from Year 7 and Reception parents buying spare seats because their statutory eligibility was stripped.

The Contradiction: PTPs are spare seats on existing contracted vehicles. Generating £185k in permit income is new revenue extracted from parents, not reduced operational expenditure. More critically, if the Council eventually succeeds in rationalising contracts and shrinking buses down to smaller vehicles, the spare capacity vanishes, destroying the permit income. Treating temporary seat sales as a permanent structural saving is an accounting illusion.

Section 4.13 of the PIR reveals that while eligible pupil numbers dropped, contracted services did not drop at the same rate. The Council acknowledges that de-eligibility has not translated directly into contract cancellations, yet the financial model still uses a linear £2,078 multiplier that pretends every pupil removed takes £2,078 of contract cash with them.

The PIR does not present audited ledger outturn showing where baseline contract spend decreased. Instead, it constructs a theoretical cost model and treats its outputs as empirical savings:

Across the entire authority, the operational transport data (Section 4.13.3, Table, p. 43) reveals:

The physical transport network was essentially untouched. Across 649 individual services, only 7 were trimmed county-wide, proving that contract expenditure did not fall in line with pupil de-eligibility.

By capping the average cost calculation at £50/day and excluding atypical routes (Section 6.2), the model deliberately deletes rural reality. When rural cohorts split, remote pupils stranded in isolated valleys require bespoke taxi contracts that frequently exceed £50/day. Excluding these high-cost runs artificially suppresses the true replacement cost of rural transport.

The PIR's own case studies admit that route fragmentation has already forced additional high-cost vehicles onto the road. In Section 4.13 (p. 44), officers report:

Splitting routes created an immediate requirement for an additional single-occupancy contract (a solo taxi). The Sept 2026 model contains zero financial contingency for the ongoing operational cost of these fragmented solo runs.

Nowhere does the PIR show actual total budget outturn comparing 2024/25 spend to 2025/26 spend. Instead of verified ledger accounting:

They present a theoretical formula:

The PIR acknowledges that children travel out of county, but it treats this strictly as a statutory administrative formality while completely ignoring system-wide education finance.

The PIR tracks Reception and Year 7 pupils receiving NYC-funded travel to schools outside the county boundary:

Despite the eligible proportion rising to 34.0%, the Council's formal response is Recommendation R14: "Maintain the current policy with regards to considering schools outside North Yorkshire as the nearest suitable school".

School Funding Follows the Pupil: The PIR evaluates transport in a silo, ignoring the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). When a North Yorkshire child is nudged across the border (e.g., into Cumbria, Lancashire, Bradford, Leeds, or Darlington) because that is their statutory nearest school, their basic entitlement funding (roughly £5,000–£7,000+ per secondary pupil) leaves North Yorkshire entirely.

Settle College governors warned Full Council of a £300,000 per year budget loss from children being diverted across the border to Kirkby Lonsdale. The PIR’s financial model takes no account of this cross-border capital flight, treating a minor or non-existent transport saving as a success while North Yorkshire rural schools absorb massive funding deficits.

The PIR identifies 16 operational pressure points (Section 7.1) and puts forward targeted patches. While these address administrative and PR embarrassment, they leave the structural policy and financial gaps untouched:

The PIR methodology is an exercise in retrofitting a new formula to protect the original £3.0m–£3.7m MTFS target.

Faced with the fact that the July 2024 model's route-costing assumptions were unprovable and that Year 1 contract reductions lagged behind pupil losses, officers discarded Model 1. They substituted a flat unit calculation (£2,078), excluded high-cost rural routes to keep the average tidy, claimed credit for £185k of spare-seat ticket sales to mask contract inertia, and capped appeal costs at an unrealistic 8 cases a year.