Proposed changes to Nottinghamshire post-16 SEND travel could cost parents hundreds of pounds
Nottinghamshire parents of young people with SEND could end up contributing hundreds of pounds towards their child's school transport.
Nottinghamshire Council is considering changes to its post-16 transport service for students with special educational needs to save money.
The authority says the number of young people who receive home-to-school transport has nearly doubled over the last five years with the service costing around £29m each year.
With increasing demand the council forecasts this to increase to £35m in the next two years.
Most eligible young people aged 16 to 25 currently use council-arranged transport including specialist vehicles, minibuses and taxis which costs around £7m yearly.
The council is expected to consult on four options for its post-16 travel arrangements over eight weeks.
Around 800 students currently would be affected.
Proposals include asking families with eligible young people aged 16 to 18 to pay a £795 yearly contribution towards council-arranged transport.
Eligibility assessments could also change to encourage more families to use the Direct Travel Assistance Payments grant to cover fuel and travel costs.
Those with household incomes less than £7,400 would not be charged.
Coun Bert Bingham, cabinet member for transport and environment, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the council is under budgetary pressure.
Coun Bingham said: “It’s not unreasonable, parents will have different circumstances, we will look at what are the needs of that student or family.”
Elliott Mizen, head of transport at the council, said the authority is looking at an option of termly payments rather than an annual payment.
Coun Bingham said: “We’ve got to manage the council finances in a prudent way and this is deemed to be the right way forward.”
The Reform-led authority aims to save £3.65m on home-to-school transport across the medium term with nearly £1m already saved through axing its discretionary faith transport service from September 2027.
The council says identified savings across the four options range from £400,000 to £3.1m by March 2029.
Once a student reaches age 16 and remains on the same course until age 19 there is no automatic right to free home-to-school transport.
Under the Education Act 1996 transport must be free for students aged between 19 and 25 if the authority decides transport is needed.