Send school transport will hit £3.4bn, councils warn
The costs of providing home to school transport for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) could reach £3.4bn per year by 2030/31, a new report has found.
The County Councils Network, which mainly represents rural authorities including North Yorkshire and the East Riding, calculated the huge rise, and said demand is continuing to rise at an unsustainable rate.
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 the House of Commons.
He said: “The Prime Minister may be aware that my local authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire is the lowest-funded per pupil for children with Send, and his local authority in Camden is the highest—an inequality that he has repeatedly pledged to end.
“Well, the results are in: next year, 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.”
The CCN has said that the Government must introduce comprehensive reforms to the Send system in the upcoming Schools White Paper, including to Education, Health and Care Plans (ECHPs) and tribunals, to help confront the rapidly rising costs of school transport.
Earlier this month, the Government announced that 90 per cent of the estimated £6.6bn in Send deficits that councils have accrued over the last decade to deliver the non-transport, day-to-day services will be paid for by the Treasury. Central government will also absorb all Send spending from 2028 onwards.
Whilst councils have welcomed these moves, the CCN has raised concerns that they do not account for expenditure on home to school transport.
The group’s analysis has found that councils transported an estimated 206,000 children with Send to school last year – a record high. If current trends continue, this will rise to 311,000 by 2030/31.
Coun Bill Revans, the CCN’s Send spokesperson, said: “It is vital that the Government does not ignore the alarming rise in Send school transport costs, which has become one of the biggest pressures on council budgets over the last few years.
“The numbers are becoming overwhelming for many councils’ budgets.”
It also said the costs are squeezing 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”.