Home to School Transport is one of the most pressing challenges facing local government today. Services are under immense pressure due to rising demand and inflationary increases, with national spending soaring by half a billion pounds over the past four years.
While these challenges are widespread and ultimately the longer-term solution lies within SEND and school-place strategies, local solutions to address spend in the ‘here and now’ require data-driven insights tailored to each council’s specific circumstances.
Through application of our integrated analytic tool over the last couple of years, we have seen some common challenges and opportunities that councils should consider:
- Councils have been able to achieve up to 5% savings on current spend when addressing spend variance on ‘like-for-like’ transport routes. Too often there is a focus on tackling the highest cost routes but rarely assess similar routes against each other to identify those which are comparatively high. By failing to interrogate comparable routes, this misses efficiencies that could significantly reduce overall expenditure.
- Vehicle selection is a key driver of transport costs; strategic vehicle allocation or market-shaping to facilitate this is often lacking. Evidence of this was from one council’s insight dashboard showing how a limited supply in the taxi market was leading to unnecessarily high costs. Operating an in-house fleet of cars would not only provide a more cost-effective solution but would also increase overall market capacity and, in turn, bring down external costs.
- Variation in pricing between transport providers when delivering comparable routes. In many cases, two suppliers offering near-identical services—covering similar distances, using the same vehicle types, and operating under similar conditions—charged vastly different rates. This represents poor value for money and councils needs to scrutinise and challenge supplier pricing structures in these instances.
- Variation in uptake of Personal Transport Budgets (PTBs); uptake varies significantly, some councils demonstrating strong adoption rates for pupils with SEND, while others have low uptake across both SEND and mainstream pupil cohorts. A more strategic approach to offering PTBs is needed to address this disparity, particularly by targeting groups where uptake is low but where PTBs could deliver better value for money.
- Inconsistent use of Passenger Assistants (PAs). Some local authorities employ PAs on a high proportion of routes, while others take a more selective approach. This discrepancy has a significant financial impact and may result in substantial increases in overall expenditure. While the role of a PA is undoubtedly crucial for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of certain pupils, there may be opportunities to refine the criteria for PA allocation, ensuring they are deployed only where necessary.
- Greater collaboration between councils and schools; we are increasingly seeing more effective partnership-working between councils and schools, with schools taking on the responsibility of delivering transport. This is frequently shown to offer better value for money compared to external providers but with careful consideration required before implementing such an approach.
Home to School Transport Insights Dashboard – Turning insights into action
Our data analysis, benchmarking, and modelling typically identifies cost reduction potential of up to 10% on the current baseline. When supplemented by a wider, holistic service review, it is often higher.
It is clear that financial pressures associated with delivering Home to School Transport services are mounting. Whilst these services cannot be viewed in isolation and must be situated within the broader strategy for SEND, inclusion, and school-place planning, it’s clear that leveraging data-driven insights can help councils deliver a more efficient transport service. This ranges from optimising vehicle choices to refining personal budget offerings and implementing independent travel training. Councils have opportunities to transform their approach and achieve better outcomes for pupils.
To support councils in navigating these pressures, Peopletoo have developed a suite of Home to School Transport Insight Dashboards — analysing demand and cost data at a granular level.
Using a combination of publicly available data and the council’s own data, we provide you with the intelligence needed to identify key challenges specific to their circumstances. This covers a range of critical factors influencing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Home to School Transport services:
- Demand, including pupil numbers, out-of-borough routes etc.
- Geographic distribution
- Route volumes
- Market sufficiency, including differential between providers
- Value for Money (cost per passenger, route, mile etc.)
- Vehicle provision, usage and occupancy levels
- Passenger Assistant uptake and costs
- Personal budget uptake
- Independent travel training uptake
We then apply our extensive knowledge of best practice to identify likely solutions that will optimise service delivery and cost-efficiencies.
At Peopletoo, we’re committed to supporting local authorities drive real change by providing actionable insights. If your council is looking to improve Home to School Transport efficiency, our insights dashboard can help navigate the road ahead. Please email danny.marsden@peopletoo.co.uk to find out more.