Recommendation 10

Contact told us that, in its experience, the main way that local authorities had cut costs was by removing discretionary transport provision for young people aged 16–19.15 ADEPT acknowledged that a lack of money meant that many local authorities had had to cut all non-statutory transport provision.16 It explained that despite local authority efforts to bring down costs, if there are insufficient places in local schools and a child needs to travel 50 rather than 30 minutes or if a child has high needs and requires a passenger assistance in a single-occupancy vehicle, then there is nothing a local authority can do to bring those costs down. ADEPT told us that insufficient local places for children and young people with SEND made SEND reform important.17 ADEPT explained that SEND reform would increase local and mainstream capacity, bring down mileage and therefore cost, and reduce the number of contracts local authorities put out. The LGA told us that SEND reforms would have a huge impact on home to school transport and that it was not possible to fix one without the other.18 Unison wrote to us after the session, highlighting its concerns about responsibilities for healthcare provision on home to school transport and how it is being funded.19