English councils spending twice as much on Send pupil transport as fixing roads

The Guardian

09-03-2025

Councils in England are spending on average twice as much on school transport for children with special educational needs than on maintaining their road networks, a Guardian investigation has found.
Many councils have said their obligations under the wider special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system are financially unsustainable, with the rapid increase in pupil transport costs becoming a particular burden.
Of 43 councils that replied to a Guardian request for data, all but eight were spending more on Send pupils' transport than on their so-called revenue roads budget, which is used for maintenance rather than capital improvements.
On average, the amount spent on transport was slightly over twice as much, and in some cases notably more. One council, Wakefield, spends seven times as much on Send transport than road maintenance, with the ratio for several others being four or five to one.
By law, councils must provide transport to Send pupils if they live more than a set distance from their nearest suitable school, with the great majority of these travelling by taxi rather than by bus. According to the County Councils Network, the number of students travelling has increased by a quarter since 2019 alone, with 31,000 going by taxi.
This creates enormous costs, particularly in larger and more spread-out areas. Norfolk spent more than £40m on Send pupils' transport in the last financial year, with Hertfordshire spending £37m and three counties, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and West Sussex, spending around £28m each.
Councils say the rapid growth of the bill is in part the product of more and more parents securing an education, health and care plan (EHCP), which provides them with extra help and, in some cases, education in a non-mainstream school.
'EHCPs were meant to make the system less adversarial but it's done the opposite,' one council source said. 'People often fight very hard to get what they see as a golden ticket. It creates a tension between parents and carers acting perfectly rationally versus councils with a very finite pot of resources.'
Another commonly cited issue is the school reforms introduced by the Conservative education secretary Michael Gove in 2014 – at about the same time the Send system was being revamped – under which schools are judged primarily on exam and test results, making them less likely to be inclusive.
The Labour government is hoping its efforts to reverse some of this, with new Ofsted grades being based in part on inclusion, will help bring more Send pupils into their local schools, reducing the transport bills.
But with the wider Send system in chaos – MPs routinely say that it is one of the most common reasons for constituents to contact them – many councils believe that this will also require more resources.
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'The only way to deal with this is to put money into mainstream schools along with very clear accountability about what they should provide for Send pupils,' another council source said. 'But you can't just tell them to provide for Send pupils – you have to fund this and have the workforce for it.'
A third said: 'There has been a change. Before the election there was a lot of buck-passing, and now the Department for Education is treating it seriously. But there is always a risk it ends up in the 'too difficult' pile.'
A DfE spokesperson said: 'The Send system we've inherited has been failing to meet the needs of children and families for far too long, with a lack of early intervention and support in mainstream schools and unsustainable strain on local government finances.'
Efforts to improve inclusivity in mainstream schools had involved £740m in capital funding this year, they added, with more significant reforms to be announced soon.