Independent SEND transport review on hold

Calls for an independent review into failings around the provision of home to school transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have been turned down.

Hundreds of families in Oxfordshire were left without school transport for SEND children at the start of September.

A petition has been handed in to the county council, by campaign group Oxfordshire SEND parent action, calling for a formal apology and an independent review.

Councillor Saen Gaul, Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet member for children's services, said "of course I'm sorry" but argued that three ongoing internal reviews should take place first, before an independent investigation is considered.

Oxfordshire County Council arranges 20,000 school journeys each day for children with special educational needs.

But at the start of term, according to Dr Claire Brenner, spokesperson for Oxfordshire SEND parent action, "hundreds" of children had no transport arranged for them.

It follows similar experiences in the two previous years, leading Brenner to hand in a petition to the council, calling for an apology and an independent review.

Brenner said, "we simply need one person, who does not work for the council, who can come in and who can get to the bottom of this. Who can speak to parents, fully understand what's been going on. And who can ask questions, without fear or favour, because parents have lost faith in the process."

The county council now says it has cleared the backlog, with only children with extreme levels of care needs still waiting, due to the complex nature of their transport requirements.

Apologising for the failings, Gaul stopped short of agreeing to an independent review, while three existing reviews are taking place.

Gaul said, "I'm not convinced a fourth review will teach us anything or enable us to learn anything that we can't learn from the first three."

"I don't want to be difficult for the sake of being difficult. I want to work with the parent action group - who I admire - I think that they work brilliantly in our community .. and between us, if I think that a forth review will teach us something that will help families across the county, of course I'll support that," he added.

At the start of September, the local authority said it had received more than 8,000 travel applications on time. Of those, "less than 1%" were still waiting for travel arrangements to be organised."

But the council also said more than 500 travel applications came through after the published deadline, leading to delays.

Confirming the workload of around 900 applications over the summer was "too much to handle", Gaul said "a combination of on-time travel applications without confirmed arrangements, data-migration issues, SEND school placements and tribunal decisions received during the holidays, missing post-16 timetables and some applications received after the published deadline" had added to the problems.

Gaul said plans were now being considered to start the home to school transport process in January, rather than in May, relieving the "pinch point" in the summer.