Home to School Travel Policy Health Check

Local authorities have a legal duty to provide home to school travel for pupils who meet certain criteria and have policies that state who is entitled to travel support, in what forms, for which journeys and what, if anything, parents / carers pay. We often find that issues such as post 16 education, denominational schools, walking distances, parental choice and safe walking routes cause confusion and dissatisfaction and lead to excessive staff hours dealing with queries and complaints.

Some authorities choose to provide more than the legal minimum and to pay for those additional services. Others currently do so but would like to consider options for future savings. A few have been challenged by parents and schools and found wanting for not complying with the law. Confusing and imprecise policies can cause stress for staff and parents alike and often have financial consequences.

We work closely with authorities on all aspects of school travel (mainstream and additional needs) to help them meet their legal duties, make savings and improve journey safety.

Our fixed price home to school travel policy health check will review your policies to identify areas that fall short of or exceed current legislation and that differ from both common and good practice.

We meet to discuss our approach, request the data that we need, understand specific concerns, determine who our contacts will be and agree a timetable.

We spend two days on-site interviewing members of your staff who implement those policies using your eligibility criteria and guidelines, to identify issues which cause them, parents and children concern and which lead to confusion, complaints, appeals and claims.

We spend one day, on site, reviewing your procedures and control processes.

We analyse the data we gather (up to one week back at the office) and produce a summary with commentary on where provision exceeds legal requirements and differs from common and best practice. Where we have been given relevant data, we estimate the potential savings that can be achieved by changing ‘home to school’ transport policies.

We present our findings and recommendations to you via a Power-point presentation at a meeting.

Our fixed fee for this health check is £6,000 excluding VAT, plus travel expenses (all travel is undertaken as economically as possible in order to ensure value for money). This price only applies on mainland Great Britain.

If you would like to discuss this with us please contact our office on 01772 204988 or send us an email.