Have your say on the review of home to school transport

When a child or young person does not have a statutory entitlement to free home to school transport, sometimes we are able to offer transport through our concessionary seats scheme. We currently provide concessionary transport for 569 children.

The scheme allows parents to apply for available bus seats and pay a subsidised daily fare. We currently charge £1.63 per return journey as a contribution towards the running cost of the service.

Around 60 of the 569 children take up spare seats on an existing bus journey provided for statutorily entitled children and therefore their transport does not require any additional funding by us. However, around 500 children receive transport that does require us to fund additional bus or transport services. We pay over £250,000 per year to provide this additional transport. Many other councils do not provide a scheme of this type.

There are two elements to the review of the concessionary transport scheme:

1. To help meet the costs of providing the concessionary scheme, it is proposed to increase the daily fare, so that it is in line with commercial public transport rates. The Go North East U19 return fare is currently £2.80 per return journey and we propose to introduce the same level of fare for our concessionary scheme from the start of the next academic year, in September 2023.
2. We are also proposing to phase out some of the concessionary scheme routes which are currently paid for by us. This may lead to less concessionary seats being available to purchase in future years for children who do not meet the statutory entitlement criteria. This will not be in place for the next academic year as it will take longer to plan and will require further discussion with affected individuals and schools.

Please note, if your school funds and provides its own concessionary transport scheme, it is not included in this review. You will know your child is part of a school administered service if you receive the transport invoice from the school, not us.

The needs of some children, particularly those with SEND, are best met by being able to travel with a passenger assistant and in some cases, as a single passenger. We understand this and will continue to meet those needs where they are identified.

However, this is the most expensive form of home to school transport and forms a significant part of our costs. Over recent years, there has been a large increase in the number of young people receiving single person transport and/or a passenger assistant.

The 2021 review identified that Durham has a higher proportion of single person journeys than other similar councils. Durham also has a much higher percentage of passenger assistants on routes provided for children with SEND than other similar county councils included in the review.

We therefore need to consider how we provide the most cost effective and efficient transport services. This will include reviewing the way we provide home to school travel assistance, including the provision of single person transport and passenger assistants. In some instances, this may involve considering alternative travel options which still meet the needs of the child in discussion with parents and schools, as well as considering how young people's needs and abilities may change over time.

Travel solutions which provide more flexible travel options for families and more opportunities to develop the independence and social skills of young people are not widely available in the county at the moment. These options can provide a dual benefit in that as well as delivering positive benefits for the young people who are able to take them up, they also have the potential to support a more cost efficient home to school transport service and enable us to allocate the budget more effectively.

There are three elements to this proposal.

Independent Travel Training Scheme

We are proposing to introduce and offer independent travel training to support greater independence and socialisation of children and young people with SEND.

The 2021 review highlighted that independent travel schemes have been shown to be extremely successful and, in some councils, over 50 children every year are helped to travel independently. The schemes have also produced better outcomes for young people over the longer term as they can help young people get to school or college more independently as well as undertaking out of school activities during evenings, weekends and school holidays. This can make travelling to college or work placements easier and can also help their transition to adulthood by giving them valuable life skills.

While achieving this level of independence will not be possible for all young people with SEND, especially some of those children with the most complex needs, we believe those that are able, should be given the opportunity and support to try it. We will work with families, schools and carer groups to develop and set up the scheme and ensure it meets the needs of young people who would like to be involved.

Pick up points

We are also proposing to introduce pick up points for children with special needs where this is appropriate. These are specific locations which are used by a child or young person with SEND to meet the bus or taxi, rather than being picked up and dropped off at their own home. The maximum distance from home of a pick up point will depend on a range of circumstances and will be assessed on an individual basis. This reduces the time needed to pick up pupils and can support children and young people to become more independent. Pickup points are already operating in many other council areas.

Where the introduction of pickup points is considered, we will work with the parents and carers of young people on those routes and in such circumstances, will carefully consider and assess the individual child's needs as well as any mobility issue and or disability of their parents.

Personal Travel Budgets

We are also proposing to review and simplify our Personal Travel Budget scheme for children with SEND and make it more widely available.

A personal travel budget provides a parent or carer with a financial allocation and allows them to make their own arrangements for transporting their child to school. They have a dual benefit in that they increase choice and flexibility for the family and can also help us to provide a more efficient service.

In many local councils, Personal Travel Budgets are typically offered to the parents of SEND passengers as this group of young people mainly represent those in receipt of special transport arrangements. However, in County Durham there is also an opportunity to offer Personal Travel Budgets to young people in some rural locations.

A child qualifies for free transport to their nearest suitable school where the shortest walking route(s) are assessed as unsuitable to walk safely, whether they are accompanied or not.

It is proposed to consider developing a programme where some of the county's unsafe routes can be made safe through road and pavement improvements, so that children and young people can walk or cycle to school. This may provide added benefits to the wider local community too, in terms of physical activity and wellbeing.

If, following improvements, an assessment results in a route that was previously categorised as unsafe being recategorised as safe, free home to school transport will be withdrawn from the start of the next academic year to provide parents and children with the opportunity to prepare for the change.

The 2021 review also identified that there are opportunities to reduce the number of individual transport routes operated by us. As a low estimate, the review identified potential  savings of 11% on average for schools with multiple routes. Any reduction in routes would also have the potential to help towards our environmental goals.

Therefore, we are also proposing to carry out an assessment of our current transport routes, particularly in those schools with a high number of routes. Following the assessment, where it is appropriate and safe to do so, we are proposing to reduce the number of separate vehicles transporting young people to school. In taking forward any programme of this nature, we will continue to ensure that eligible young people are transported to school appropriately and in accordance with their needs. 

The home to school transport service is operating in a challenging environment of increasing demand, price inflation and contract costs. There are also challenges around the supply of transport and market competition in some geographical areas. 

Therefore, it is proposed to review how we commission our services to ensure they are sustainable for the future as well as delivering value for money on routes and contracts. This will include looking at best practice in other council areas and working with the transport providers to promote healthy competition for contracts, while ensuring that appropriate supply is maintained.