Concerns West Dunbartonshire pupils using the under 22 bus pass to get them to and from school might be running late for class have been raised by councillors. 

The local authority has been encouraging some pupils to make use of the free bus pass scheme which was introduced in January last year and allows young people between the ages of five and 21 to travel on most bus services in Scotland for free. 

It comes after councillors agreed to phase out the provision of council bus passes for around 360 young people who currently go to school on a public service bus and instead support those pupils to utilise the Scottish Government’s Under 22 Travel Pass.

During the most recent education committee, questions were raised about the uptake of the scheme in West Dunbartonshire as the local authority approved the latest round of school transport contracts for the next 12 months.

Councillor Karen Conaghan said: “Are we looking any further to move away from what we have provided before and in terms of dedicated bus transport to get people to use the under 22 bus passes.

“It is about making sure they are attending school but also about giving them more responsibility and teaching them to use public transport. I am interested to see if we are looking at anything further there.

“Has there been an impact on attendance? Have young people been late as a result of having to get used to something different?”

A council officer confirmed that there had been an impact on attendance at the beginning of the term and the local authority had been in touch with families to resolve the issue.

They said: “There was an impact on attendance very early on in the term where some young people were arriving later at school. 

“We did communicate with those families to make them aware that there are a number of contracts that the children could have actually got instead of just going for a particular bus at a particular time. 

“That is a benefit of it being a public service where there are more buses on that route that young people can get.”