Education is the passport to the future, so said Malcolm X. But why is it costing local authorities so much more to transport children to that education? And what can they do about it?
For several years, councils have been dealing with rising costs and budget pressures relating to home to school transport but in the past year or so, this has quickly risen to the top tier of issues for authorities.
Local authority expenditure in this area jumped from £1bn in 2015/16 to £1.5bn in 2021/22 – a 50% increase over 6 years. However, in the last 12 months of that period, spend increased by 15% – a staggering £200m.
Almost three-quarters of this spend relates to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and this is where nearly all of the increased spend has occurred. And therein lies the challenge – and the opportunity.
A comprehensive diagnosis of the causes and challenges being experienced by councils is set out in this detailed report produced for the County Councils Network (CCN) by Isos Partnership.
But what can councils do about it, in the knowledge that it’s unlikely there will be a big sack of cash coming down the chimney from central government on 25th December, or any time soon after that?
Peopletoo has worked with more than a dozen councils over the past few years to help them find practical and deliverable solutions that will reduce the cost associated with transporting children to their education setting. Despite being an issue that councils have grappled with for several years, and increasingly so in recent years, there are still a range of levers available that we find councils have not fully pulled.
- Policy – how clear is your policy, does it align to your overall SEND strategy, and what decisions can you take in relation to minimum statutory requirements?
- Practice – how is your policy applied in practice by the team responsible for agreeing EHCPs, their costs, and commissioning support? Does your practice fully promote personal budgets and independent travel?
- Process – are your operational processes giving you clarity about likely transport needs, the associated costs, and the options available?
- Procurement – how are you commissioning and procuring transport options? Do your specifications and contract models incentivise efficient use of transport options and routes?
- Planning – how are you working with transport providers to plan travel routes, making best use of technology, to increase efficiency, travel times, and cost?
As an organisation we are uniquely placed to offer support with our experienced blended team of specialists comprising; SEND practitioners, commissioning, procurement, and transport experts. Along with your teams, we can explore the range of opportunities available and deliver cashable savings.
But to achieve the level of cost reductions that local authorities require to be financially sustainable in the medium-to-long-term, a system-wide approach to managing SEND demand, creating and maximising the use of local provision is required.
We often see a disconnect in the overall SEND strategy and related financial plans, driven by the different funding arrangements – with most SEND costs held in the High Needs Block but home to school transport and various other support services held in the General Fund. But this needn’t be the case.
With significant budget pressures being wrestled with in the DSG and General Fund, it’s understandable that councils have had to compartmentalize their efforts, but this isn’t possible when it comes to SEND services. A strategic and holistic approach is essential to get maximum value for money from crucial services that support children with additional needs – facilitating a child-centred not accounting-led approach.
Our focus on the 5 Ps of Home to School Transport can help you deliver significant short-term savings, but to go even further and provide long-term financial sustainability, councils need to address underlying and longer-term demand.
A step-change in transport expenditure needs to be built upon fewer children with an EHCP and more children in mainstream and/or local specialist provision, reducing the distances to be travelled, accompanied by a developed approach to strategic commissioning to meet need.
Peopletoo is working with two local authorities in the DfE’s Safety Valve intervention programme. Whilst there is a significant ‘carrot’ at the end of the programme, in the form of paying off a drastically reduced cumulative deficit, it has shown that councils are able to devise far-reaching and ambitious programmes to reduce demand and increase sufficiency of local provision.
Home to school transport spend, and wider SEND demand and expenditure, is one of the biggest challenges facing local authority now – and into the future. It requires a concerted, whole-system and whole-council approach to put in place the long-term strategy and the short-term actions that will help children to flourish in education whilst balancing the books for the council.