Recommendation 21

In its June 2025 Fair Funding Review, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said that home to school transport for children up to 16 accounted for approximately 3.7% of total local government spending in 2023–24.52 It is one of the fastest growing areas of local authority spending.53 In response to the escalating pressure it has been putting on local authority budgets in the past decade, MHCLG is introducing a new relative needs formula for pre-16 transport from April 2026.54 MHCLG told us it recognised that home to school transport was an important issue for some authorities and that the formula would allocate funding to local authorities—through the local government finance settlement—based on need.55