Action to tackle rising cost of Sheffield school transport predicted to hit £38m

The spiralling cost of home to school transport for children with extra support needs is one of the financial pressures that has led to Sheffield City Council facing a £34.3m deficit in the current financial year. The other areas include rising costs in housing and homelessness services, and in providing social care for adults and children.

The council’s education, children and families policy committee will next week (September 3) discuss a plan to help rein in costs and improve services.

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A report to the committee notes: “The council has a statutory obligation to provide travel support for eligible children. In Sheffield, as nationally, there are increasing numbers of children accessing home to school travel support.

“The number of users increased by 7.9% from March 2023 to March 2024, to almost 2,500 in Sheffield.”

The report adds that the increasing demand is closely linked to the rising number of children and young people with an education, health and care plan (EHCP). This is a legal document for anyone aged up to 25 who has special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) that describes their needs and what provision must be put in place to help them.

Integrated

The growing demand for special educational needs provision means that “many of our special schools are full, some are now operating from multiple sites across the city, and there are also more settings offering specialist provision”.

Other children use integrated resources in mainstream schools. This has led to an increase in the number of destinations served through home to school travel, the report says.

The council is looking at a number of ways of cutting costs, including an expansion of independent travel training for young people, a pilot scheme using shuttle buses running from homes to the Sheffield College Peaks and Hillsborough campuses, more shared taxi journeys and the possibility of introducing a fleet of council minibuses.

Work is taking place to see if some families would prefer to receive personal travel budgets so they can make transport arrangements for children and young people that suit them.

A review also looked at the 100 most expensive taxi journeys to see if any changes could be made.