SEND reforms left unanswered questions on home-to-school transport and council deficits, says PAC

- Government shown to still lack understanding of parents' difficulties in navigating system as report calls for better local transport options to benefit communities and reduce costs 

New plans designed to help local authorities struggling to finance support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) fail to take into account burgeoning home-to-school transport costs. In a new report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that the plan for addressing spiralling deficits in this area in future years remains unclear.

The Government has now announced plans to write off 90% of the historic deficit from overspending on SEND, which will amount to a cumulative £5bn+ by March '26, with SEND costs to be met from central departmental budgets from 2028-29. However, there are still unanswered questions on the plan for any deficits arising between now and 2028. Moreover, while the new funding arrangements will address SEND cost pressures for councils from 2028-29, they do not cover home-to-school transport costs.

Government must clarify, at the earliest opportunity, the level of support it will provide to local authorities with ongoing SEND deficits.

The problems with home-to-school transport are pressing. Parents often experience a cliff-edge for this support post-16, following which age any support is at local authorities' discretion. The PAC's report highlights an accompanying weight of evidence that the system is hard to navigate for parents. Despite this, the Department for Education (DfE) seems apparently unconcerned about the clarity of offering for this age group, or the impact losing transport at 16 may have. Council efforts to deliver these services are not keeping pace with growing demand, with spending increasing by 106% in real terms between 2015-16 and 2023-24 (currently around £2.5bn annually).

The ongoing decline of bus services, particularly in rural areas, is a long-standing concern for the PAC. Its report notes that better local transport options would reduce home-to-school transport costs, and that resetting expectations about what travel assistance looks like beyond a door-to-door service could also create savings. For many of the children and young people that use it, particularly those with SEND, transport is not just about going from A to B but also about gaining independence. A move to local bus franchising with councils in charge of routes, timetables and fares is a possible opportunity to replace expensive contracts with lower-cost alternatives, while safer walking and cycling routes to school could reduce reliance on home to school transport and offer benefits to the community as a whole.

Government should outline how it intends to harness the benefits that improved overall local transport options can have for travel assistance. For example, rather than a taxi from home to school, it could be transport from home to a bus stop or from a bus stop to a place of education.

The report underlines the importance of collecting clear data to oversee home-to-school transport effectively, with the DfE currently in the dark as to who receives it and whether it reaches those most in need. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is also called upon to act in the report, having not set out its plans for monitoring whether its new funding formula reflecting rural vs urban needs for transport is actually working on the ground.

Rachel Gilmour MP, Member of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “We are glad that the government is starting to heed our Committee's warnings, stretching back through years of multiple inquiries, and are beginning to grasp the nettle that is the SEND emergency. But a problem this chronic and severe demands a response that does not leave any unanswered questions for children and families. Unfortunately, our inquiry has identified a number of glaring ones for home-to-school transport - a problematic system for parents on which government spends multiple billions a year not covered by government's recent announcements.

“There are things departments might do to improve the current system; by collecting more data on how home-to-school transport is used; by tracking how current funding is improving existing services, particularly in rural areas; by helping parents with the unacceptable cliff-edge often waiting for children who need assisted travel once they turn sixteen. But our report sketches out a different future which government must consider: a resetting of what travel assistance might look like by improving local transport infrastructure overall, for the benefit of entire communities. We hope the recommendations in our report help the government work towards making this a reality.”

PAC report conclusions and recommendations 

The Department for Education and local government are highly reliant on recently announced SEND reforms to solve the pressing problems with home to school transport.  Local authority efforts to deliver school transport services at lower cost are not keeping pace with growing demand, particularly for SEND transport, where spending has increased by 106% in real terms over the period 2015-16 to 2023-24.  As well as actions such as route optimisation, more sharing of transport, new approaches to contracting and promotion of independent travel training, most authorities have also restricted non-statutory transport provision, particularly for young people aged 16-19. The Department assures us it is working closely with local authorities to understand and promote best practice, and with the transport sector to provide better public transport. However, to achieve the scale of change needed, both the Department and local authorities are looking to long-awaited SEND reforms, which are still subject to consultation. By identifying needs earlier and meeting needs of more children closer to home, the Department expects demand and distances travelled, and therefore costs, to fall.  However, even if the recently announced reforms are successful, it is likely to be some time before they translate into savings on school transport.

Recommendation 1.   The Department should, in its Treasury Minute response, provide the Committee with an update on:

1. a) how the proposed SEND reforms will affect home-to-school transport costs, when savings will start to materialise, and what the estimated savings by year will be; and
2. b) what it is doing to address the growing costs of providing home to school transport in the meantime, including how it is facilitating greater sharing of best practice between local authorities.

The Department does not understand how access to transport is affecting attendance, nor how difficult it is for parents to navigate the system, particularly post-16.  While acknowledging that transport is critical to accessing education and training, the Department does not know how  annual spending - £2.3 billion in 2023-24 and £2.6 billion in 2024-25 - on home to school transport is impacting overall attendance and participation levels. Instead, it only considers how many sessions children who are already receiving local-authority-provided transport might fail to attend due to problems on a particular day. That is surprising when nearly one in five children misses a day or more of school per fortnight - around one in three at sixth form age - and almost 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training (NEET).  Entitlement to transport differs markedly by age, with parents often experiencing a cliff edge post-16.  For ages 16-19 local authorities have discretion to decide what support, if any, is necessary to facilitate attendance in education.  Despite the weight of evidence that parents find the system hard to navigate, the Department appears unconcerned about the clarity of the offering for this age group or the impact that losing transport at 16 may have. Parents and colleges report young people missing learning or failing to start courses after age 16 because transport is no longer provided or is not suitable.

Recommendation 2. In its Treasury Minute response the Department should provide an update on action it is taking to:

1. a) improve its understanding of the relationship between home to school transport, attendance and those not in education, employment or training; and
2. b) work with local authorities to ensure parents understand entitlement post 16.

The Department does not yet have the data it needs to oversee home to school transport effectively. Though local authorities have submitted spending data on home to school transport for many years, the Department has only recently started to collect data on the number of children and young people receiving transport and how they travel. It received a 75% response to its 2025 voluntary data collection, but the way local authorities collect data varies and some were only able to provide partial responses. Without a better understanding of costs per capita - how they compare between authorities, and across different modes and providers of transport - and trends over time, the Department cannot understand if it is achieving value for taxpayers' money. It also lacks a credible baseline against which to measure how future policy changes, such as SEND reforms, affect costs and demand for home to school transport. The Department does not know who receives home to school transport and whether it reaches those most in need. Parents report that provision broadly meets need for children with SEND up to 16, but not beyond. 

Recommendation 3.

1. a) Alongside its Treasury Minute response the Department should write to the Committee setting out its plans for  continuing to improve data quality so it can better understand cost drivers, identify and share best practice, and have a starting point against which to measure the impact of policy changes, for example the recently announced SEND reforms, on demand for home to school transport.
2. b) The Department should make its data collection from local authorities mandatory and write to the Committee setting out how it is improving consistency and standardising data while minimising  cost and burden for local authorities.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has now set out the detail of its new funding formula for home to school transport but not yet set out its plans for monitoring whether it proves to be successful in aligning funding with local need. In 2023-24, home to school transport (pre-16) accounted for approximately 3.7% of total local government spending, but is one of the fastest growing areas of local authority spending. In response to the escalating pressure it has been placing on local authority budgets in the past decade, MHCLG has announced a new funding formula for home to school transport from April 2026 to better align funding allocated through the local government finance settlement with local need. MHCLG assures us that the formula reflects rural and urban differences, for example, by basing funding on journey time rather than miles travelled.  It published details on the formula after the evidence session. Although it represents a much smaller proportion of the total, spending on 'SEND transport' post-16 is growing proportionately faster than for pre-16, but is not covered by the new formula. MHCLG has yet to set out how it intends to monitor the impact the new funding formula has on local authorities.

Recommendation 4.   MHCLG should write to the Committee to set out how it will assess whether the funding formula changes better align with local needs in practice.

While the Government has now announced plans to write off 90% of the historic deficit from SEND overspending, the plan for deficits arising from now until March 2028 remains unclear. Funding for SEND-related high-needs spending has not kept pace with demand over the past decade, and local authority cumulative SEND deficits are projected to exceed £5 billion by the end of March 2026.  In the November 2025 Budget, the Government announced that from 2028-29, it would meet SEND costs from central departmental budgets. In June 2025, Government extended the statutory override - the mechanism that has allowed local authorities to keep existing SEND high-needs deficits off council budgets - until March 2028. Acknowledging them as a shared responsibility between central and local government, in February 2026 MHCLG announced that all local authorities would be eligible to receive a grant covering 90% of historic deficits up to the end of 2025-26, subject to the Department for Education's approval of a local authority SEND reform plan. MHCLG has not yet said what level of support it will offer on deficits arising from overspending which occurs from now to March 2028 or what, if any, support it will give to local authorities that avoided running up SEND deficits by making cuts to other services.  While new funding arrangements will address SEND cost pressures for local authorities from 2028-29, they do not cover associated home to school transport costs, which will continue to put pressure on local authority budgets.

Recommendation 5.

1. a) MHCLG should, at the earliest opportunity, clarify the level of support it will provide to local authorities with ongoing deficits from overspending on high-needs budgets.
2. b) MHCLG should explain the basis on which it will decide to write off historic deficits and how this will work in practice including what, if any, support it will give to local authorities that avoided running up SEND deficits by making cuts to other services.

Better local transport options and an integrated approach to education and transport planning, would reduce home to school transport costs, particularly in the most rural settings. The ongoing decline of bus services, particularly in rural areas, is a long-standing concern for this Committee. It has reduced travel options and increased reliance on local-authority-provided home to school transport. A move to local bus franchising, where local authorities decide the routes, timetables and fares for local services provides an opportunity to replace expensive contracts with lower-cost alternatives.  For many of the children and young people that use it, particularly those with SEND, transport is not just about going from A to B but also about gaining independence. Ensuring bus services better meet the needs of pupils will require coordination between transport and education authorities. There are some good examples of coordination and collaboration between local authority SEND and transport teams already, but the Department could do more to promote this.  Safer walking and cycling routes to school could reduce reliance on home to school transport and offer benefits to the community as a whole, while resetting expectations about what travel assistance looks like beyond a door-to-door service could also create savings. For example, rather than a taxi from home to school, it could be transport from home to a bus stop or from a bus stop to a place of education.

Recommendation 6.   In its Treasury Minute response, the Department should set out how it is working with the local government sector and with other government departments, such as DfT, to better integrate education and transport planning in all local authorities and harness the benefits that improved local transport can have on home to school transport.