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Sussex's special needs pupils could be stranded at home

2:40pm Thursday 4th March 2010 in


Youngsters with special needs could be left at home if they miss their transport to school.

Brighton and Hove City Council and East Sussex County Council have both proposed cuts to their home to school transport budgets.

Local authorities provide cars and other transport to ensure vulnerable pupils get to school.

The city council hopes the cuts, agreed this week, will save £ 323,000, about 10% of its home to school transport budget.

Moves include creating central pickup places, instead of doortodoor pickups and introducing a points system for the service and some rerouting.

Where appropriate, no additional trips will be made if children are not ready for transport on time.

Vanessa Brown, cabinet member for children and young people said: "The efficiency will not only come from the authority, it will also ask service users and their parents to assist.

"The measures will allow better use of the council funding while maintaining a suitable service."

But Labour councillor Pat Hawkes said: "This is about more than just cutting money; this will have a massively negative impact on families and children across the city."

East Sussex County Council has also announced it is looking at ways to slash a similar percentage, or more than £ 1.1 million, from its own home to school transport budget.

It referred its plans to its audit and best value scrutiny committee yesterday.

Comments(9)

jaygee says...
3:27pm Thu 4 Mar 10

about time too.its not the kids fault if they are late,bless em,its the parents.

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davyboy says...
4:47pm Thu 4 Mar 10

many of these kids require specialist transport, for wheelchairs and the like, and cannot be taken to a central pickup point. if the councils want to cut their school travel budget, look at the amount of money spent shuttling kids across the city to schools they don't need, and leave the specialised transport alone. this goes back to the stupid allocations policy for normal secondary schools, where kids are allocated places at the other side of the city, and the council picks up the bill with free bus passes. keep the kids near their homes, wherever possible, and reduce the cost of their travel. i understand that any child travelling more that 3 miles to school is entitled to a free pass, but it is the council who put them there in the first place. lack of thought and communication, again!

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stan bailey says...
5:43pm Thu 4 Mar 10

I would imagine very few children live more than three miles from their school. we are not talking travelling across the Penines

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Mrs Newcastle says...
5:52pm Thu 4 Mar 10

The issue of school transport for children with statements was raised in the case of R v Hereford and Worcester CC, ex parte P, (1992), Times, 13 March. The court held that it was implicit that the transport provided by the local authority should be “non-stressful” if the child was to benefit from education.

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davyboy says...
5:56pm Thu 4 Mar 10

stan bailey wrote:
I would imagine very few children live more than three miles from their school. we are not talking travelling across the Penines
no stan, we are not. but for those kids who have to travel across brighton from patcham to hove park, and there is about a bus full every day, free travel passes are issued. why they HAVE to travel like this is beyond me, when they have a local school, but this is the result of the councils policy(lottery) for admissions to secondary education. parents in patcham hear on the grapevine that Patcham High is not a good school, and opt to send their kids elsewhere. the council, in their wisdom, allocate a place at Blatch Mill or Hove Park, and then pay the kids travel. why they don't give them varndean or stringer, only they can answer that! kids requiring transport to special schools should be at the top of the budget, not be the one to be cut.

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joanne77 says...
6:33pm Thu 4 Mar 10

whitehawk kids have to travel more than 3 miles as no school closer.

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davyboy says...
6:56pm Thu 4 Mar 10

joanne77 wrote:
whitehawk kids have to travel more than 3 miles as no school closer.
yet again, another thing caused by the councils admissions policy. totally unfair to the kids and families. it is about time the council bit the bullet and re-opened comart.

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stan bailey says...
7:20pm Thu 4 Mar 10

davyboy wrote:
joanne77 wrote:
whitehawk kids have to travel more than 3 miles as no school closer.
yet again, another thing caused by the councils admissions policy. totally unfair to the kids and families. it is about time the council bit the bullet and re-opened comart.
Totally agree, unfortunately the champagne socialists in Hanover, don't want their kiddies mixing with natives in Whitehawk. St Lukes is a 'nice' school. They would have had to ship them around London to the suitable school. So Brighton is travel is no real problem

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alyn, southwick says...
10:29pm Thu 4 Mar 10

jaygee wrote:
about time too.its not the kids fault if they are late,bless em,its the parents.
And what experience do you have dealing with "Youngsters with special needs"?
Their "special needs" sometimes make it physically impossible to always be ready on time, plus their "special needs" mean they may not understand the meaning of time. Their "special needs" may be worse first thing in the morning (even most of the most able of people find mornings tough). Their parents are probably under enough physical and emotional stress without your wise cracks or the councils ill thought policies.
Meeting at a central pick-up point could be "unsafe" even for the most able of children, and as another poster has said it could be illegal because of the added stress. These parents may have other children who also need looking after and may not make it possible or easy to go to a central pick-up. Also if they could have got to a central pick-up point they probably would not have been given door-to-door pick-ups in the first place.
(By the way my experience is as a foster carer of a child with special needs AND a professional working within the special needs sector. We have actively, at our own expense and often unsupported by local authorities helped to develop our child's independence - even when it then saved the LA money - but according to the child's needs not the councils budget.)

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