Foreword

Over the past few years, Travel to School Transport (TTS) has risen to become one of the largest spending pressures on local authority budgets with recent County Council Network (CCN) research estimating councils in England will need to spend £2.3bn on home to school transport services this year to meet rising costs and demand – a 23% increase in just two years*. CCN member councils have been particularly susceptible to these pressures, accounting for 57% of spending in this year despite only serving 42% of the school-age population.

Much of this rise has been interwoven with the rapid growth in Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP) which a recent independent report commissioned by CCN and the Local Government Association has highlighted as an “existential threat” to local government finances without wide-ranging reform of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system. The SEND dynamic is important as many Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) explicitly specify the need for bespoke transport arrangements that has contributed to rising unit costs for TTS.

Whilst CCN has called for greater investment from the Government to support councils in meeting their statutory duties around education, there is also a recognition that local authorities must ensure that they are planning their home to school transport services as efficiently as possible. It is important that local authorities are sharing best practice in this area of growing importance to all councils.

To that end in April 2024 CCN with strategic partners IMPOWER hosted a webinar for CCN member authorities to discuss the means by which home to school transport services were being developed and made more effective. The webinar brought together over 50 members and officers from across CCN’s 37 member councils and beyond. Importantly it included officers from both People and Place directorates given responsibility for the service sits in different parts of the organisation in different authorities.

The webinar shared the experience of two local authorities in reforming their home to school transport services working with IMPOWER. This then led to an open questions and answers session with participants raising issues that their authorities are facing around the home to school transport challenge and highlighting areas where they would welcome more support. This short report brings together some of the learning that was shared on that day including a closer look at some of the ways councils are addressing the growth in demand for home to school transport and making their services more efficient and responsive.

Cllr Kate Foale, CCN Spokesperson for Education and SEND