Cabinet is set to make a final decision on whether to make changes to Home to School transport from September 2025.
Following a consultation at the start of the year, proposals will now go before Cabinet on 25 November to bring the Council’s policy in line with statutory requirements.
It could see changes to the transport provision that we currently fund, as well as potential changes to eligibility criteria for assistance.
Changes to the policy would ensure that support is focused on the most vulnerable children and would address the significant financial pressures facing the service.
If approved, the changes would not come into effect until September 2025, and all pupils who currently receive travel assistance will be unaffected by the proposals whilst in their current school, college or sixth form.
All applications would continue to have their needs assessed on an individual basis to establish any extraordinary circumstances and to ensure the right support is in place.
Our proposals include:
- Changing the minimum qualifying distance for free travel from one to two miles for those under the age of eight for children with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and who attend a special school, special educational needs unit or additionally resourced provision.
- Changing the minimum qualifying distance for free travel from one to three miles for those over the age of eight for children with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and who attend a special school, special educational needs unit or additionally resourced provision.
- Removing funded bus passes for those travelling to faith schools on the grounds of religion.
- Introducing a standard charge per academic year (equivalent to 50% of the cost of an annual Nexus Network 1 Anytime Ticket) towards the cost of Post-16 travel assistance.
- No longer reimbursing 50% of travel costs of pupils attending mainstream education.
- No longer accommodating individual part-time timetables, and only providing transport at the start and end of the school day.
Like councils across the country, we are experiencing unprecedented pressure on social care services and are set to make difficult decisions to spend funding where it is most needed.
The Home to School transport service has a budget pressure of almost £3.5million and changing the provision would save £1.2m over the next four years.
Cllr Steven Phillips, Cabinet Member for Inclusion, Employment and Skills at North Tyneside Council, said: “Our Home to School Transport service is under significant pressure, both financially and through the number of children we currently support.
“Right now, it offers services above and beyond what is statutory and like many Authorities nationally, we are proposing to create a fair policy that supports those who need it most to ensure they continue to have access to education each day.
“We know this is a vital service for many families and we need to protect our service for the most vulnerable children.
“Support will continue to be on offer as we’ll continue to assess children and young people’s circumstances individually, and we’ll be promoting independence and learning and development through our successful independent travel training offer.”
We have successfully grown our independent travel training offer which has already supported 15 young people to travel independently and build new skills.
Two additional independent travel trainers will soon be appointed to work with children and young people to support them to travel independently, not only to school, but to out of school and college activities.
The decision will be made at North Tyneside Council’s cabinet meeting on Monday 25 November at 6pm.