Havering’s cabinet has passed a new Home-to-School Transport policy to ensure it can continue providing travel support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
The new policy introduces flexible transport assistance options, to provide a more bespoke service to meet the individual needs of the children requiring support.
Moving forward, all applications will begin with a face-to-face assessment, which will take into account existing family support and help to make arrangements that best meet the assessed need for the individual child.
The personal transport budget will provide funds for eligible families to be able to organise their own transport.
This could include pre-booked vehicles or a travel card for parents to escort their own child to school or college using public transport.
Proposals also include increasing the number of collection points to reduce bus journey times, as well as reviewing the use of personal taxis, which are not cost-effective or sustainable for the Council, and providing more travel training to help young people to travel independently.
Havering Council provides transport assistance for nearly 800 individuals up to the age of 25 years-old with SEND.
In 2022/23, the Council spent £5.5m pounds, which was £2.8m over budget. In 2023-24 this rose to over £6.8m.
The Council is currently facing an extreme funding crisis, and the rapid rise in the borough’s older and children and young-people populations has seen social care costs increase to unmanageable levels.
Unfortunately, the government’s funding formula is based on a 2013 formula using population data from the 2011 census resulting in underfunding for statutory services.
The Council has been forced to take out a £54m capitalisation direction, essentially a loan, from the government to meet the shortfall.
Over 570 people responded to the Council’s consultation on SEND transport, with some parents and carers raising concerns that home-to-school transport would be cut to make these savings.
However, savings against services are based on efficiencies and not cuts to statutory services.
The changes to the policy will help the Council provide a more efficient and tailored service, whilst ensuring no child is disadvantaged.
Following the consultation, the Council has scrapped plans to introduce a charge for post-16 travel using the service, recognising the vital role transport plays in helping post-16 year-olds to access education.
Councillor Oscar Ford, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, said:
“I understand that this consultation has caused a lot of anxiety amongst parents and carers of young people with SEND.
"The cost of living crisis has made things even tougher for already struggling families, and the prospect of having to deal with additional travel costs is bound to cause more of a strain.
“This new policy is designed with you in mind. It is vital that we keep providing this invaluable service to families that need it, but to do that, we needed to look at the way it is delivered to keep costs down and give you more options and flexibility.
“Each child and young person will be treated and assessed on an individual basis taking into consideration their needs and abilities; there will not be a one-size-fits-all approach.”