Concerns raised over cost of Send home-to-school transport

It comes after ministers set out sweeping reforms to the Send system intending to make it more inclusive for children with additional needs, as well as reducing costs for local authorities in the long term.

However, plans do not cover cost pressures from home-to-school transport costs, MPs said following an inquiry.

PAC member Rachel Gilmour said MPs are glad the Government is “beginning to grasp the nettle that is the Send emergency”.

“But a problem this chronic and severe demands a response that does not leave any unanswered questions for children and families,” she added.

“Unfortunately, our inquiry has identified a number of glaring ones for home-to-school transport – a problematic system for parents on which the government spends multiple billions a year not covered by government’s recent announcements.”

Councils will have 90 per cent of their high-needs deficits accrued up to this year written off, and Send costs will be managed within the overall Government budget from 2028.

However, the new funding arrangements do not cover home-to-school transport costs.

The County Councils Network has estimated councils transported a record high 206,000 children and young people up to age 25 with Send to school last year at a cost of £2bn.

The group, which mainly represents rural authorities including North Yorkshire and the East Riding, says this could rise to £3.4bn by 2030/31.

In North Yorkshire, there are a number of children which each cost more than £1m-a-year for their Send provision, including home to school transport.

“They are the extreme, but we get them and we get them on an all too regular occurrence,” the council’s corporate director of resources, Gary Fielding, said.

Next year, council costs are rising by £19m, he explained, “purely down to increasing demand” regarding Send.

The East Riding has long complained about its poor funding settlement regarding Send, saying it receives £18m less per year than the average local authority.

Bridlington and the Wolds MP Charlie Dewhirst recently raised this in Prime Minister’s Questions, telling Sir Keir Starmer: “Children in my local area will receive just under £1,000, and children in his local area will receive over £3,800. The gap is getting wider.”

Coun Bill Revans, Send spokesperson for the CCN, said: “The government’s Send reforms have real potential to contain these costs, if implemented in full as outlined last month.

“A greater emphasis on inclusion in mainstream schools should enable more Send pupils to be taught at their local school, and changes to the tribunal system could ensure that transport costs are adequately assessed before rulings are made.

“It is vital that the government implements these changes as quickly as possible so they can begin to make a difference.”

It is hoped this will prevent the squeeze transport provision for mainstream pupils, something Coun Revans described as an “unintended consequence”.

This can be seen in North Yorkshire, where the council changed its overall policy to only provide free transport to the closest school.

Furious parents have been protesting this as it has meant children going on dangerous, ungritted roads over the tops of the Dales or forsaking their free buses to school. They have said it is “killing the Yorkshire Dales”.