Cutting school transport for disabled kids is a cruel way to balance the books
Getting children with disabilities or long-term ill health to school should be a top priority for local authorities.
There is no doubt that town halls may be struggling to balance their budgets and face tough spending choices.
But cutting services cannot mean vulnerable youngsters being left abandoned by the education system.
Jessica McMillan had to overcome a string of health battles before she could start enjoying school like other kids.
But now the disabled youngster, aged nine, has been told she can no longer have a place on a council-funded bus to take her the four miles from her home to a specialist school in Ayrshire.
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It means her mum faces the impossible choice of quitting her full-time work to take her daughter to and from school, as her dad is recovering from a stroke.
Jessica needs a wheelchair for any distance over 300ft and requires constant one-to-one care, with poor vision and limited hearing.
The family say they were hit with the school transport blow after seeing reports that other parents had been refused and enquiring over Jessica's place with East Ayrshire Council in June.
It's a situation mirrored in other local authorities. The SNP government spent years freezing council tax for political gain. Now kids like Jessica are left paying the price.
Councils are struggling to deliver basic services while roads crumble and community centres close.
But books cannot be balanced by depriving disabled kids of their right to an education. Jessica and others need a space on school buses.
Faraway Farage takes us for fools
May's Holyrood election is shaping up to be the most important poll in the history of devolution.
With the NHS struggling and other public services in urgent need of reform, our political parties must step up and offer credible policy solutions.
Part of that process involves the parties listening to Scots and coming up with ideas on how to improve our lives.
Our story today about Reform UK hiring policy makers to work at Westminster for the Holyrood election is the wrong approach.
Holyrood is central to Scottish political life and the areas under MSP control are of crucial importance.
Reform and the party's leader, Nigel Farage, are taking Scots for fools.
The days of centralised political parties deciding devolved issues in London should be a thing of the past.
The big policy ideas for the next five years at Holyrood should be made in Scotland.
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