SEND Reforms Need To Address Home To School Transport Pressures

Local authorities are struggling to balance their legal duty to provide transport for eligible pupils and the duty to balance their budget, says the National Audit Office (NAO).

The NAO’s latest report examines the reasons why home to school transport is one of the fastest growing areas of spending for local authorities in England.

Between 2015–16 and 2023–24, spending by councils in England on home to school transport rose by 70%, leading them to spend £415 million more than they had budgeted in 2023-24.

Local authorities must provide free transport for school-age children who cannot walk to their nearest suitable school due to distance, special educational needs or disabilities, or safety concerns, with extra support for low-income families.1

But councils are facing a range of pressures, which have implications for demand and costs of home to school transport, including:

• More children travelling further to schools that can meet their medical, behavioural or safeguarding needs, as the number of education, health and care plans increased by 166% between January 2015 and January 2025, from 240,000 to 639,000.
• As children and young people travel further, the number of unique journeys and the use of smaller and single occupancy vehicles is increasing.
• Councils spend around five times more on transport per child with SEND than on other children. In 2023-24, on average, transport for a child with SEND cost £8,116 compared with £1,526 for ‘mainstream transport’.
• Provider markets have not yet recovered following the Covid-19 pandemic as driver recruitment was affected by competition from other sectors.
• Transport operators facing higher costs, from fuel and wages.
• A reduction in public transport services, particularly in rural areas, increasing reliance on local authority transport.

Responding to these pressures, many councils are reducing the provision of discretionary transport. The NAO spoke to ten local authorities who had all withdrawn or restricted free or subsidised transport for young people of sixth form age, children below compulsory school age, or those not attending their nearest suitable school.

In some cases, losing this transport can impact on pupils who may miss out on school, or their parents may have to adjust working patterns or give up work altogether to take their children to school.

Local authorities are using a range of approaches to manage rising school transport costs, including independent travel training to boost pupil independence; route-optimisation software; in-house transport; and tighter contract management.

As DfE seeks to improve its data on home to school transport, the NAO also recommends they:

• Work with councils to understand the overall effectiveness of its home to school transport policy and the impact of changes in policy or discretionary transport, e.g. on attendance.
• Track how changes to the funding formula affect different types of local authorities, and ensure funding aligns more closely with actual local needs.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO said:

For the children and young people that rely on local authority-provided transport to get them to school and college each day, it is an invaluable service. Without it, many may struggle to continue with their education.

Local authorities are making savings to meet their statutory duties, but they are looking to DfE’s upcoming SEND reforms to ensure the long-term sustainability of home to school transport

Read the full report here