Children with special educational needs and disabilities in Bath and North East Somerset could be required to attend a nearer school to qualify for council-funded home-to-school transport, after a change to an “outdated” policy.
The Guildhall in Bath
An equalities impact assessment said it would make it “less likely” for some children to get the transport support.
But the council’s head of special educational needs and disabilities insisted children would not be asked to move schools and no children currently receiving the support would lose it.
In the UK, children who are unable to walk to school because of their special educational needs or disability and whose parents cannot take them may be entitled to free transport to school, as part of an education, health, and care plan (ECHP) drawn up with their local authority.
After new government guidance was issued in January, Bath & North East Somerset Council is proposing changes to its “outdated” home to school transport policy.
The changes will add requirements into the policy for children to attend the closest appropriate school for their needs in order to qualify for the free transport.
If parents or carers request a particular school to be named as their child’s school in their EHCP but there is a space available at a nearer suitable school, the parent or carer will be responsible for getting the child to school.
A document outlining the changes added: “Going forward, we may also consider amending the named school on an EHCP if there is a closer, more suitable school that would make more efficient use of our resources regarding school travel support.”
The council currently spends over £4 million a year providing home to school transport to 433 children, aged between 4 and 16, with special educational needs and disabilities.
The equalities impact assessment prepared by the council said: “The new policy may make it less likely, in some cases, for parent/carers to get home to school travel support for their SEND [special educational needs and disabilities] child/young person due to the adjustments in the DfE [Department of Education] criteria. This will affect new applications and people currently receiving travel support.”
At a meeting of the council’s children, adults, health and wellbeing scrutiny panel on Monday 13th May, the panel’s vice-chair Liz Hardman (Paulton, Labour) called the move “really quite concerning”.
She warned it would have an “emotional impact” on affected children.
But Laura Donnelly, the head of special educational needs and disabilities at the council, insisted there were “no plans” to ask parents to move their children to different schools.
On the requirement to attend the nearest appropriate school, she said: “There’s nothing that’s changed in practice around that; it just wasn’t explicitly in the policy before and so it’s about us trying to be transparent.
“But I think our parents and carers who have EHCPs would be very aware, through conversations with their practitioners, that that was always the case and sometimes we would ask them if they wanted a further away school, to pick up the transport costs or partial transport costs in order to fund taking the child to a further away school if that was their choice.”
She added: “We have no plans to ask parents to move their children to other schools but we will allow our parents to have the choice of our new schools when they are opening which may well be closer to home, but at the moment that’s not something we are planning to do at all.
“It’s not the right thing to do but we would also never be successful at tribunal over a move like that anyway.”
Asked by Dave Harding (Chew Valley, Liberal Democrat) how many children currently receiving home to school transport would not be able to under the new policy, Ms Donnelly said: “It’s none. The eligibility hasn’t changed.
“The type of transport might change or the type of transport we offer might initially be different, whether it ends up different after we have spoken to families and had professional reports etc, but there is no reduction in eligibility, no.”
The council’s cabinet member for children’s services Paul May (Publow with Whitchurch, Liberal Democrat) said: “Most of everything that’s driving this report has been set down by instructions from government and under those circumstances, our policy was I think quite confusing, and its sensible for us to have a sensible way for how we are moving forward.”
The council has written to all parents and carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities currently receiving school travel support, and contacted all of the schools which they attend.
Six in-person drop-in events have been held across the area over the plans.
The policy will be finalised through a single member decision on 10th June.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
