Parents anger at not being paid full refund for cancelled school trips

PGL organises outdoor adventure trips for schools, youth organisations and families.

Schools trips booked with PGL were cancelled earlier this year after the firm closed its centres in response to Covid-19.

In June, PGL confirmed it was in contact with Fife Council with regard to refunds and how it could support schools and parents.

However, it transpired the vast majority of schools are being forced to pay cancellation charges of 30-35 per cent, despite the cancellation being out of their hands.

As a result while some primary schools such as Leslie, Newcastle and South Parks have been paying back parents for the full amount by dipping into their own cash reserves, other schools such as Southwood do not have the money to cover the cancellation fee.

One parent, Carolann Morrison, said: “Myself and a group of parents from Southwood Primary had paid for our children’s trip in full.

“The school have refunded us minus the deposit and are refusing to refund this. As you can imagine we are all unhappy and feel we should have a full refund.

“Many other schools we have spoken with have given the full refund.”

Another Southwood parent, who asked not to be named, added: “It has been utter chaos trying to find out what’s happening with refunds, which is quite bad when the school is in one of the most deprived areas of Glenrothes.

“One minute we were getting the money back the next they didn’t have the funds to cover it, and when we were given the money back all cheques were £30 short, which was the deposit.

“It would be understandable to keep if we were the ones that cancelled, but we weren’t and are disgusted to find out other schools received full refunds, but our children didn’t.”

Fife Council confirmed all money received from PGL has been paid back, but is doing everything possible to negotiate full refunds from all companies involved in school trips, including PGL.

Shelagh McLean, head of Education and Children’s Services, said: “The refunds we’ve received so far have all been paid back to parents.

“However, some non-refundable deposits have not been returned by companies and we are continuing to pursue these, to determine if there is any possible further resolution, although it may take some time.

“In the meantime, some schools have used their own school funds to refund deposits to parents. This is a choice for individual schools if they have funds available.”