Home to school transport consultation 2017
| Purpose | The county council is in a very challenging financial position with costs and demand rising especially in adults and children's social care. Based on current spending and forecast demand for services there will be a funding gap of £153m in 2020/21. This has and continues to require careful examination and review of all areas of expenditure, including home to school transport. We currently spend over £5m on providing mainstream home to school transport and we will continue to provide free home to school transport, which is our legal duty, in the following cases: · For children aged between 4 and 16 years attending their nearest school and where the suitable walking route from home to school is over 2 miles for children under eight years old and over 3 miles for children aged eight years and above. · For children with a special educational need, a disability or a mobility difficulty, either long term or temporary, which means they cannot be expected to walk , accompanied as necessary, to the nearest appropriate school, even if this is within the statutory walking distance. · For children from low-income families who are: between the ages of 8 and 11 where the nearest school is over 2 miles from their home; between the ages of 11 and 16 where any one of the three nearest schools is between 2 and 6 miles from their home; and between the ages of 11 and 16 where the nearest school preferred on the parental religion or belief is between 2 and 15 miles from home. Low-income families are those pupils whose parents are in receipt of the maximum amount of working tax credit or the pupils are eligible for free school meals. However, of the amount we spend on home to school transport, over £400,000 is spent providing home to school transport we have no legal duty to provide. This money is spent on subsidising transport for pupils who attend their nearest faith school but live closer to an available non-faith school. From 1 September 2018, the county council is proposing to phase out this subsidy. If a policy change is agreed, it will only apply to new pupils in the Reception Year and Year 7. Children who start school under one set of transport arrangements will continue to benefit from them until they conclude their education at that school or choose to move to another school. In this consultation we would like to know how stopping the funding to subsidise home to school transport for pupils who attend their nearest faith school but live closer to an available non-faith school will impact on you. |
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| Subject |
School services eg meals, crossing, EPS |
| Commissioned by | Pupil Access Team |
| Geographic area |
All of Lancashire |
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| Method |
Questionnaire - online |
| Consultation with |
General public Parents/carers Schools/parents/governors Service users |
| Date | 12/06/2017 - 21/07/2017 |
| Undertaken by | Business Intelligence |
Contact information
For more information about this research contact:
Pupil Access Team
01772 531676
Email: ECSPupilAccess.Central@lancashire.gov.uk