Executive Summary

This report sets out findings from an evaluation of the Free Bikes Pilots for school age children who cannot afford them (the Free Bikes for Children Pilot Scheme).

The scheme involved nine pilots which were introduced to try out a range of ways to offer free bikes for school age children who could not afford one. The pilots varied in size and scale, worked with different partners, and used different methods of providing a free bike for young people – including fleets, loans, libraries, subscriptions, ownership and mixed approaches. It was not envisaged that there would be one preferred option, rather a range of possible options for development.

Projects were designed to test different approaches, learn and adapt 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.

This evaluation focused strongly on the processes and mechanisms of providing free bikes for children, and also involved a little exploration of the impact having a bike made to families. The evaluation covers the work of the pilots from autumn 2021 to August 2022.

Targeting

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. Learning from this included:

Pilots would have welcomed some collective criteria on how to identify young people who cannot afford a bike.

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 key role in targeting children, young people and families in most of the pilots, bringing in depth knowledge of family needs and expertise in understanding disadvantage and inequality within the school. Community organisations were also often well placed to do this.

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 periods.

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.

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.
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. Participants welcomed recycled bikes in principle, but they needed to be high quality and didn’t always match the needs of children.
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.
Distribution of bikes required careful thought, as projects worked with families who were often in transport poverty or didn’t have access to transport.
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.

Storage and maintenance

The pilot projects used different approaches to supporting safe storage, and ongoing maintenance for the bikes. Learning included:

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.
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.
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.

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.

Early 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.

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.

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.

Recommendations

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

Based 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.

Age, stage and approach

Further consideration should be given to the age and stage at which young people are offered a free bike. 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.

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.

Re-use of existing bikes

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.

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.

Investment in storage and maintenance

Investing in storage options at home, in the community and in schools would help to widen access to the free bikes approach. The pilots also demonstrate the importance of a proactive approach to supporting bike maintenance, which is accessible to people who can’t transport faulty bikes for repair.

Adaptive bikes

The pilots demonstrate the value of a library or loan approach to meeting needs, which could 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.

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