Bath and North East Somerset Council is allocating more than £10 million annually to home-to-school transport, often covering schools located as far as northern Oxfordshire to accommodate children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Local authorities are legally required to provide transport for certain children, including those living far from school or with SEND that prevent them from walking. Due to a shortage of SEND school places in Bath and North East Somerset, the council frequently arranges transport to schools across Somerset, Bristol, Wiltshire, and beyond.
Last year, out of nearly 2,700 children eligible for home-to-school transport in the area, about 700 attended SEND schools. Transport for these pupils is substantially more expensive—costing on average five times as much as for children in mainstream schools. Daily taxi fares for a single SEND child ranged between £87.50 and £283.25.
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The council’s expenditure on this transport has doubled over six years, increasing from £5.4 million in 2018/19 to £10.8 million in 2024/25. The current financial year’s budget further rose to £11.4 million.
Lucy Hodge, Cabinet Member for Sustainable Transport Delivery, addressed a council scrutiny panel in November, acknowledging, “We are not alone in this challenging environment and in many ways are performing well.” She noted that while numbers of children attending mainstream schools are stable, the number of children with Education, Health, and Care Plans (EHCPs) has surged nationally and locally, with approximately half requiring transport. The core challenge is that existing local SEND provisions are full.
To alleviate this, the council plans to open a new 120-place special school and a 55-place alternative provision school at the Culverhay site in Bath. However, this development is stalled pending government approval.
The need to send children to distant schools is also driven by the varied and complex nature of SEND, requiring specialized settings. Ms. Hodge explained that identifying the right fit for each child creates a “wide scatter” of destinations.
High transport costs stem largely from having to use taxis to ferry individual children to dispersed locations. These contracts tend to be unattractive due to the long distances involved, often resulting in only a single tenderer and consequently, higher prices.
In response, this year the council started employing its own drivers and purchasing second-hand vehicles for these journeys to reduce costs. Paul Garrod, Head of Highways, Parking, and Passenger Transport, emphasized fiscal prudence: “We are not buying brand new vehicles, but they are of good standard.”
He added that increasing local SEND school provision would have the most significant impact in reducing transport costs and distances.