A COUNCIL spent £72,158 on taxi fares for one special needs pupil in a single year, new figures show.
The sum was the single highest annual charge faced by Staffordshire County Council for home to school transport for pupils with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).
Cllr Janet Higgins, cabinet member for education and SEND at the Reform UK-led council, published the authority’s top 20 SEND transport spends in response to a formal question from Cllr Matthew Wallens.
The list shows that the second highest annual charge was £46,953, with 19 SEND pupils having transport costs in excess of £30,000 a year.
Some of the spends on the list were for home-to-school journeys of more than 20 miles – although the £72,158 spend was for a daily trip of just 4.78 miles.
The county council provides transport for 2,890 SEND pupils in line with legal requirements, with 290 travelling in single-occupancy vehicles such as taxis.
Transport costs are among the reasons for the eye-watering SEND costs faced by many local authorities, including Staffordshire. The county council predicts that its dedicated schools grant deficit will rise to more than £90million by the end of 2025-26.
During a full council meeting, Cllr Wallens, Reform representative for Lichfield City North, noted the transport costs “seem very high indeed”, and asked what actions were being taken to reduce spending.
Cllr Higgins explained the highest individual costs would typically include a personal assistant for the child, and that statutory guidelines require the council to provide transport that is safe and comfortable, with minimal stress and journey times.
But she told the meeting that steps are being taken to bring down costs where possible.
She said:
“Transport is one of my responsibilities, so we’re looking at bringing better sharing of taxis.
“We’re looking at routes, we’re looking at young people, we’re looking at various things to try and put more children into the taxis.
“There are also legal issues that we can’t change, but we will lobby the Government on.
“We’re bringing in a new vacant seat policy that was discontinued by the previous administration. That meant our Staffordshire County Council bus service went past some families’ homes and young mainstream children weren’t able to catch the bus.
“We’re going to bring that back so mainstream young people can buy a seat on one of our buses. That will give us an income and help the families.
“It’s all about cost-cutting but we have to make sure we still deliver the service and look after our young people.”
Cllr Higgins added that the council would also be introducing mandatory basic English tests and first aid training for all drivers and personal assistants.
SEND spending by local authorities has rocketed in recent years, with increasing numbers of families applying for education, health and care plans.
Councils are currently allowed to keep SEND deficits off their books through a statutory override, which will continue until 2028.
A white paper setting out the Government’s long-term solution to the issue is expected next year.
How utterly ridiculous. Is this how our hard earned council tax is wasted. The amount going up year on year.
I worked at Saxon Hill over 20 years ago. Children were bused in in minibuses that would safely accomodate a few pupils at a time with someone supervising them.
I cannot recall seeing taxis for one off pupils.
Some working families are finding it hard to feed their kids and pay their bills. I wonder how they feel when they read things like this.
I wrote to Staffordshire County Council some months ago about the number of taxis being used rather than mini buses that could take 8 or 10 pupils with one driver & one passenger assistant which would cut costs, road congestion & emissions. They never replied to me.
The cost is the cost. How about all those people moaning including councillors lobby government to stop wasting money in other areas and build more SEN schools. Normal mainstream schools and the teachers in them are whoafully inexperienced and the schools dont have the resources. More schools is the answer. The likes of above councillors and nastsy pat mcfadden what to blame send children and parents instead of owning the situation in terms of decades of under investment and educating society.
All local authorities have been doing this for decades, short sighted, il conceived ideas and these fools spend the hard earned cash like confetti
Perhaps the driver in question routed via the infinity roadworks on Eastern Avenue. Nothing like a protracted meaningless wait to run up the meter.
I am pleased to see that Councillor Higgins has highlighted these exuberant costs in providing transport for children with SEND to get to special Schools. As she also said there are legal requirements that need to be followed, however she is looking at ways to reduce the cost to taxpayers.
It is obvious to me that the Government need to relax these strict rules to enable the Council to look at cost cutting measures, without jeopardising safeguarding the children.
Just as a matter of point, do parents receive a benefit in order to help with costs for their children’s transportation ?, if so could this not go directly to the Council to offset costs.
Buy your own vehicle. simple
I work in the taxi business transporting children to and from school and the thing that staggers me is I’m picking up some children who’s parents live in a mansion and have new Mercedes luxury cars so obviously multi millionaires and yet the taxpayer is paying for their children to have home to school transportation when the parents can clearly afford it themselves, make it make sense to me
70,000+ per year may look on the high side for a taxi to school, even with a personal assistant, but I suspect we’re not seeing the whole picture and what is included in this figure. Indeed, it is not for us to pry into the individual circumstances. I doubt there’s some taxi driver ripping off the council, and special needs covers an extremely wide range of circumstances. It’s odd that a Reform councillor is asking the Reform cabinet member to disclose these figures. Is the intention to inform the public or just provoke an emotional response?
@Carl – maybe the Reform councillor asking the question is a minibus driver who fancies a piece of the action himself… Of course I’m sure if the record was checked he’d have declared the very clear conflict of interest in his question and have a jolly good reason for asking.
I bet that taxi had the cleanest windows in the entire fleet.
In reply to Pete – people who live in big houses and have nice cars generally work v hard for what they have. Driving your child miles to the only school that will accept them means taking an hour or more out of your morning and the same again out of your afternoon. This is totally unworkable for a lot of parents. More special schools need to be built and more minibuses used for multiple pick ups. And better training for mainstream teachers so more children can stay in the mainstream system.