SCHOOL TRANSPORT
SCHOOL TRANSPORT COSTS IN DORSET COULD HIT TERM TIME COST OF £1 MILLION A WEEK
School transport costs in Dorset could be heading for a term-time cost of £1m a week – unless savings are found. Over two years costs of running the service have risen by £12m and now exceed £35m over a full year. And parents of many SEND children often fight attempts to switch them to a cheaper option. Former education portfolio holder Cllr Andrew Parry said the council was keen to offer training to SEND children so they could use public or school buses – but was often met with a challenge at tribunal level, or through the courts. “Parental choice is a really significant issue… about 97% of the findings go in favour of the families
so any attempt to change puts us on the backfoot. “Travel training will often be met with a push-back from families who would rather have a door to door taxi service and if they push and went to a tribunal it would likely find in their favour,” he said. Dorset Council is currently responsible for getting around 7,000 mainstream children to and from school daily with 1,200 SEND children, who are often unable to travel on regular buses, where they exist, or on school transport routes. With wage and fuel inflation added in the costs, providing the service has increased from £24.5m in 2021/22 to over £35m in 23/24, recently rising at the rate of more
than 20% a year. Of the £35.02m budget for the current financial year just over £19m is spend on SEND transport (up from £9.2m in 2019/20) with main- stream school transport costing £10.83m; public transport £3.93m and ‘operational support’ £1.2m. Around 300 council staff are employed by the council to work on school transport. Corporate director for infrastruc- ture, Matthew Piles, told council- lors that the crux of the matter was lengthy daily journeys. He said the aim of Dorset Council was to pro- vide more local facilities for SEND children to help reduce transport costs and keep the children within their local community.
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FEBRUARY 2024 PHTM
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