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CASE STUDIES

Home to School Transport SEND Review​

At a Glance…

Peopletoo were asked to review Manchester City Council’s Home to School SEND transport provision with a view to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery.

The Challenge

Manchester City Council (CC) support c1,700 SEND children and young people travelling on c400 different routes with a range of types of transport. Manchester CC’s transport policy was reviewed in 2016/17, with c£1m being removed from the budget. Despite the service still being able to balance this budget, the new policy is not well understood by schools and parent/carers leading to increased volumes of appeals and complaints.

Furthermore, growing demand for the service, due to growth of the SEND population in the city, is putting pressure on the back-office team to assess applications and allocate spaces on vehicles. Additionally, a shortage of Passenger Assistants (PAs) to support journeys reduced the capacity of the service meaning there are children awaiting transport. 

Likewise, high absence rates amongst existing PAs placed additional stress on the service as finding replacement PAs/standing down buses was very time consuming. Poor access to technology hindered route planning capabilities, and communication with transport providers and PAs.

Our Approach & Delivery

To support Manchester City Council, Peopletoo undertook the following approach:

  • Detailed analysis of Manchester CC’s spend on transport across a range of vehicles, calculating cost per mile, cost per route figures, and comparing to industry best practice.
  • Undertook a review of suppliers used to deliver SEND transport to highlight where contract management issues may arise, as well as identify where a consolidation of suppliers may be beneficial.
  • Reviewed vehicle utilisation figures across all routes to understand where the council may be overspending on excess vehicle capacity, indicating where savings could be made through downsizing vehicles.
  • Performed a route mapping exercise for a sample of the existing routes to establish whether combining certain routes may improve vehicle utilisation and utilise the service.
  • Understood where some service users may be capable of independent travel and enhance the uptake of independent travel and enhance the uptake of independent travel training and Personal Budgets (PTBs).
  • Reviewed appeals process and application of transport to policy to understand why application numbers are rising.

The Impact

Outcomes Achieved

  • Further consideration of the operating model to facilitate a more even spread of workload amongst back-office staff to prevent administrative tasks absorbing large amounts of staff time.
  • Review of vehicles used to allow for greater vehicle utilisation through allocating more suitably sized vehicles to each route, identifying potential savings of c£180k.
  • Increased emphasis on independent travel provision through PTBs to alleviate some of the demands on the service with a view to increase PTB uptake by 5%.
  • Re-tender routes for the next academic year with refreshed DPS.
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