Conclusions
Introduction
This evaluation explored the process and mechanisms of providing free bikes for school age children who cannot afford them, through an evaluation of nine pilot projects.
The pilot projects were set up to test ways of delivering free bikes to school age children, to promote and support active travel and reduce inequalities. Each project took a different approach to delivering free bikes – including through community hubs, school clusters and community organisations, through bike fleets, libraries, free subscriptions, loans and ownership.
This chapter explores the learning from the pilot approaches, from August 2021 to August 2022.
It should be recognised that the pilots were set up with the purpose of learning and trying new approaches. Projects tested ideas and approaches, learned and adapted along the way. Many of the themes and challenges identified here were areas of learning and discussion within the pilot scheme, due to regular reflection, risk registers and discussion around progress with each project.
Learning about targeting participants
Each pilot set their own target group, within the parameters of a pilot for children who cannot afford a bike, using different approaches to identifying potential participants. Key areas of learning from this include:
- Pilots would have welcomed some collective criteria on how to identify young people who cannot afford a bike. This would be important if the scheme rolls out across Scotland. However, having some flexibility to target disadvantaged and vulnerable families based on professional knowledge was also valued, to ensure that young people do not miss out.
- Young people and parents indicated that they felt happy, lucky and excited to be involved, and expressed no concerns about being identified as eligible for the opportunity.
- Schools played a critical role in targeting children, young people and families in most of the pilots. Schools brought in depth knowledge of family needs, and expertise in understanding disadvantage and inequality within the school. Community organisations were also often well placed to encourage take up of bikes. Both could speak directly with parents, which helped to encourage uptake and reduce barriers to participation around administration.
- Many of the schools involved had teachers who were passionate about cycling, suggesting additional work may need to be done if engaging with schools which did not have teachers with such a passion or personal interest in cycling.
- When working with schools and community organisations it is important to minimise the time involved in administration, provide simple information for families in a range of formats and languages, ensure consent processes are simple and short, and avoid too much additional work during busy transition periods such as p7. It is also vital to ensure that commitments made can be kept, to ensure schools and communities see the pilot as building on, rather than adversely affecting, their relationship with families.
- The main barrier to uptake related to storage, particularly if it was a condition of the pilots that bikes were stored indoors. In rural areas, there could be barriers around lack of safe routes to cycle.
- It is important to think about the age at which young people are offered a free bike. While targeting primary pupils offered the opportunity to link with Bikeability and build a positive cycling ethos early in life, participants expected to grow through their bikes more quickly (within a year to two years). A library, fleet or loan approach connected to primary schools could help to address this issue.
- Having a library, fleet or loan approach in place rather than full ownership may help to increase the capacity of schools to meet participant needs over time, and reduce the need for strict targeting and cut offs. It could open up the opportunity of opt-in, universal approaches to access to a bike at school.
Learning about procurement and distribution
The pilot projects used new bikes, recycled bikes through local cycle shops and third sector organisations, and through refurbishing unused or abandoned bikes through the project. Learning from procurement and distribution included:
- Providing high quality bikes, whether new or recycled, was felt to encourage sustained use and reduce maintenance costs. Overall, the parents, carers and young people felt that the quality of the bike they received was high, both for recycled bikes and new bikes. The evaluation found that many families would not complain about something that was free, so ensuring high quality from the outset is important.
- Projects offering new bikes liaised with both manufacturers and retailers. While bike shops were pleased to be involved in some of the pilots, they were aware of the potential impact of the approach on their bike sales if projects engaged directly with manufacturers, with children’s bikes representing a big part of their business.
- While some projects accessed reduced cost bikes through manufacturers that required assembly, this required skilled staff, and there were staff costs and logistical issues (including space) associated with this.
- Projects focusing on recycled and refurbished bikes found that it could be challenging to match supply and demand, as they were dependent on what was supplied or donated. Some had to blend recycled bikes with other approaches.
- Distribution of bikes required careful thought, as projects worked with families who were often in transport poverty or didn’t have access to transport. Projects found that having the flexibility to deliver bikes to young people at suitable community locations helped to reduce the barriers to access and build relationships. While some delivered bikes to people’s homes they were concerned this wasn’t particularly efficient or environmentally friendly.
- Young people liked being able to choose the colour, style and design of their bike where possible, but where this wasn’t offered most were happy to be getting any bike. Participants valued the wider equipment such as helmets, locks, rain covers and lights. Almost all parents said it was very important to them that the project provided safety equipment like helmets. However, a few young people, of all ages, said that they didn’t wear their helmet.
Learning about storage and maintenance
Some projects identified storage as a key barrier in early development around their pilot. Access to a safe and secure place to store a bike was an issue for many families, particularly for those living in flats or shared accommodation. Many preferred to keep the bikes inside as they were concerned about security.
- Evidence from two of the projects found that 3% of the bikes they provided had been stolen (and replaced). Others were not aware of any bikes being stolen.
- Some projects required bikes to be stored in schools or in the community, and shipping containers were felt to be safe and cost effective. Some schools highlighted that storage of bikes was an issue, with more children cycling to school.
- The pilots found that bikes would need serviced between every 12 weeks and every year to two years. Recycled or refurbished bikes tended to be checked more regularly. Families felt that it was very important that the project included help with maintaining the bike.
- There were some logistical challenges around maintenance, with it being difficult for families to transport bikes needing repairs when they were damaged. A few young people had free bikes that they couldn’t use as they needed repaired or maintained and didn’t know how to get help with this.
- A few projects felt that maintenance resources had been higher than expected, and in the future, they would include more staff time for maintenance.
- Maintenance and repairs could play an important role in supporting young people to use bikes that they already have, and reduce the need for new bikes.
- Most projects aimed to use bikes again, as participants returned them. Projects were still learning about how many times a bike could be recycled, the cost of doing so and the life cycle of a bike. The process of taking bikes back, refurbishing and re-issuing them would require resources and infrastructure.
- Families felt it was very important that they received support with safely using the bike, and a bike that would last or could be swapped, and replaced if stolen. While those in the older age group (upper secondary) often felt that they could use an adult sized bike which would last them a long time, many of the upper primary young people felt the bike would last one to two years.
Learning about adaptive bikes
Most projects planned to deliver some adaptive bikes within their pilot. At the time of this evaluation, five projects had either ordered or distributed adaptive bikes. Sourcing bikes could be challenging, and took longer than for standard bikes. Most were using a fleet or library model for adaptive bikes. Projects found that it was important to think about storage – with adaptive bikes being expensive and usually larger than standard bikes – and maintenance, which may require specialist skills.
Evidence from a small number of families highlighted the difference that having access to an adaptive bike can make for pupils with additional support needs. Families found that the bikes brought joy, stimulated language and learning, and expanded the range of activities the family could do together.
Learning about impact
Feedback from parents and carers showed that since having access to a bike through the pilots:
- 80% felt their child’s cycling skills were a lot better
- 75% felt their child was much more active
- 66% felt their child’s physical health was a lot better
- 58% felt their child’s mental health was a lot better.
Young people also said they were more active, went outdoors more often, went out in all weathers, spent less time in the house, got out into different environments and new places, felt happier, saw their friends more often, and felt more included. Families also talked of spending more time together, out cycling and walking.
Many schools reported seeing more children now cycling to school, and an increase in bike use more generally in the local community. Some schools found that the pilots were building a more positive culture around cycling to school.
Many families said that without the pilots their children would not have bikes, or would have bikes which were unsafe, expensive to repair, too small or not working properly.
My daughter would have never got a new bike.” Parent
Learning about costs and scalability
Initial exploration by Transport Scotland suggests that the number of children requiring a free bike could range from 80,000 to 160,000. Analysis of pilot project costs suggests that the cost of providing a standard free bike could be in the range of £675 to £768 including the bike, a safety package, storage, maintenance, awareness raising and bike distribution. The cost of providing adaptive bikes ranged from £812 to £2,980.
This does not include any costs for wider support to encourage use of the bike, including cycle skills training and maintenance training – which families found to be essential. There may be economies of scale as the most efficient approaches to providing bikes are adopted. There may also be opportunities to include recycling and re-using bikes within the scheme, and using loans, libraries and fleet approaches so that each bike can meet the needs of more than one child. Further work would need done to explore the life of a bike, how many times it could be refurbished and the costs of this.
Recommendations
Based on the learning from this evaluation, the following issues should be further explored and built into future provision of free bikes for school age children who cannot afford them:
Clear eligibility criteria
There should be clear criteria for establishing eligibility for free bikes. These should build on recognised methods for targeting support for school age children, including the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, entitlement to Free School Meals and entitlement to school clothing grants. It is recognised that there are children who may not meet these criteria who are in need of support, and there should be some scope for flexibility and local knowledge in determining eligibility.
Age and stage
Providing bikes suitable for a school age child to use from p1 to S6 is likely to involve at least three bikes (lower primary, upper primary/ early secondary, and upper secondary). Further consideration should be given to the age and stage at which young people are offered a free bike. While connecting the offer with Bikeability (P5-7) makes sense in terms of building a positive cycling ethos early in life and building cycling skills for all, this is a stage at which participants expect to grow through their bikes quickly (within a year or two years). Different options may work to meet needs at different ages and stages.
A mix of options
In considering access to free bikes throughout young people’s school lives, it is likely that a range of different options could meet needs. Having library, fleet or loan approaches in primary and lower secondary could help address issues around children growing out of their bikes. This could also increase the capacity of the scheme to meet participant needs over time.
Ethos of re-use
Any approach to providing bikes for school age children should embed and embrace an ethos of re-use. This could include returning bikes when they are grown out of and no longer needed, to meet the needs of other participants; and upcycling and refurbishing bikes to keep them in use and support affordable access to bikes. This approach is logistically complex, in manging returns and distributions – which this evaluation found generally works best at school, school cluster or community level. It also requires further work to understand the lifecycle of a bike and the cost of re-use. Work in this area could connect with the findings from research into re-use and circular business models undertaken by Cycling Scotland.
Role of schools
Schools played a key role in identifying, targeting and supporting children within the pilots. Future approaches should continue to involve schools as key partners. To do so, it is important to minimise the time involved in administration of the scheme, and consider timing of offers to avoid the busiest times in schools.
Use and re-use of existing bikes
Many of the young people involved in the pilots already had a bike, which was not working or too small. There is scope to consider how best to support maintenance of existing bikes to enable use for their owners or younger family members, to get people using the bikes they already have.
Maintenance support
The pilots demonstrate clearly the importance of support with maintaining a bike, to ensure ongoing use. This requires a proactive approach which is accessible to people who can’t transport faulty bikes for repair.
Investment in storage
It is important that lack of storage is not a barrier to accessing free bikes for families who need them. Those least likely to have suitable storage space are those most likely to need support with a free bike. It is important that not having access to indoor storage at home is not allowed to be a barrier to having a bike. Investing in storage options at home, in the community and in schools would help to widen access to the free bikes approach.
Adaptive bikes
Learning about adaptive bikes was at a very early stage at the time of this evaluation. However, the pilots demonstrate the value of a library or loan approach to meeting needs, with school or community based opportunities and a chance to take the bike home for a short period of time. This approach should help to widen access and reduce barriers around storage and maintenance, which are considerably more challenging for larger and more expensive adaptive bikes.
Cost of living
Finally, it is important to consider the resources required for the scheme during a time of a cost of living crisis. It will be important to explore the value of this approach, compared with other types of support for families and school age children.