Issue - meetings

To receive and consider the Review of Home to School Transport Processes report.

The Committee received the Review of Home to School Transport Processes report which was set out in Agenda pages 13-18.

Daniel Robinson, SEN Consultant and Zoe Storey, School Admissions and Transport Manager presented the report.  The following comments were made during discussions of the item:

·           Members noted that one of the issues which had caused difficulties last year was the lateness of parental responses and asked what actions were being taken to prevent it from happening again;

·           Zoe Storey stated that communication had been sent out to parents in the beginning of the summer and the lack of responses had not been anticipated.  The plan was to send out communications earlier this year;

·           Daniel Robinson explained that this application process had not happened for four or five years, and parents were not expecting it.  This year there would not be a need to ask for a form from each family in order to re-commission the service.  The communication going forward would be through schools and SENCOs, he acknowledged that last year the communication with parents had not been sufficiently clear.  It was necessary to have 90% of responses in order to commission the service accordingly;

·           Daniel Robinson informed that the process for commissioning home to school transport had been signed off today with Corporate Transport Unit (CTU) and SEN teams.  He offered to share more information about this with the Committee;

·           Members were pleased that a review had taken place and that there was acknowledgement that things had gone wrong in the past year.  A Member shared an example of unsatisfactory travel arrangements for an autistic child, and expressed frustration that the report listed excuses for bad practices which should not have occurred;

·           It was suggested that Officers should have telephoned parents who had not returned their forms on time.  Daniel Robinson stated that the SEN Team had, later on, called parents asking them to return their forms;

·           A Member felt appalled by the distress that the lack of efficiency had caused parents in the Borough;

·           Daniel Robinson stated that the report sought to give an overview of the situation at the start of the review and to explain the actions which were being put in place to prevent errors from occurring again; 

·           It was explained that because so many forms were received late, the service had had to be re-commissioned, which had resulted in changes two days before the start of term; 

·           Part of the review was looking into strengthening communication with parents going forward;

·           A Member believed that the key issue was that there had not been joint up work between CTU and Children’s Services; she believed that the transport for SEND children service should be placed under Children’s Services.  It was also worrying that communication with schools had not been good;

·           A Member was very concerned that no one had realised that the process of re-commissioning all the providers would be complex and time consuming, and therefore not enough time and resources had been allocated to deal  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35