Cost of school transport for Hertfordshire children with special educational needs and disabilities tops £30.7m in a year
The cost of transporting Hertfordshire children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to and from school topped £30.7m last year.
The total is almost double the £15.39m it cost the county council five years earlier, in 2018-19.
On Wednesday (November 6), the increasing costs – and the measures being implemented to reduce them – were presented to a meeting of the authority’s education, libraries and lifelong learning cabinet panel.
There are currently 3,165 SEND children and young people eligible for, and accessing, transport to and from school – 28% more than the number whose travel was funded by the council 10 years ago.
The average cost of that transport per pupil has almost doubled – from £4,876 in 2014 to £9,731 in April this year.
The increasing number of children and young people requiring transport, combined with the additional costs of providing that travel, has hiked the council’s costs dramatically.
Council officials say the bill has also been inflated by a rise in the number of pupils requiring transport out of the county and the use of part-time timetables.
They highlight the increasing number of pupils with behavioural and communication needs requiring lone transport.
Pupils with increasingly complex needs may require specialist transport and additional passenger assistants.
At the meeting, the council’s deputy head of admissions, Jayne Abery, highlighted the “significant” increase in SEND transport.
She said the pressure on the budget had been identified “well before” the Covid-19 pandemic.
Work had been going on to reduce the number of children on contracted transport and to ensure that transport worked as efficiently as possible.
She highlighted the council’s ongoing focus on the remaining discretionary transport, such as that offered for over-16s.
Ms Abery also pointed to alternatives – such as personal transport budgets and travel training. Parents and carers can opt to accept the former as an alternative to the contracted transport. Travel training is designed to enable some young people to use public transport.
In addition, the council has introduced chargeable seats for children with EHCPs (education, health and care plans) who are not entitled to free transport to special schools.
The authority has used route optimisation software to review and amalgamate journeys.
At the meeting, Liberal Democrat Cllr Lawrence Brass said this was a “huge, huge” item in the council’s budget, suggesting that more emphasis must be put on the possibility of independent travel.
He highlighted one pupil who had a taxi to school “paid for by me and all of us, we ratepayers” – but then would take a bus with friends to see “the Spurs” at the weekend.
“He’s very happy to go on the bus and he goes around on the weekend using public transport,” he said. “And it occurred to me, if he can go to Spurs on a Saturday, why can’t he go on the bus to school the day before?
“Don’t you think we should be spending more time and thought in encouraging independent travel for young people, particularly those of secondary school age?”
Ms Abery said that this boy might be going to a school which he could not access by public transport. But she agreed that independent travel was something the council should concentrate on.
She suggested the authority should not provide any small vehicle transport to a child that can access their education provision in a fairly straightforward way on public transport.
Cllr Caroline Clapper, the executive member for education, pointed to the wider benefits of travel training.
“I think it’s not even just about the financials,” she said. “Because even though it’s a huge cost to the county council and to the taxpayer, it’s about creating independence, which in the long run is going to be really beneficial in preparing for adulthood.”
The issue was raised at the education, libraries and lifelong learning cabinet panel following a request from the audit committee.
