To think the council isn't allowed to deny providing transport on the basis that my child can be late every day if I provide it?

[Senmater]

My DD is in primary school and has an EHCP, as well as a blue badge. She goes to a different primary school to her siblings, as her siblings' primary could not meet her needs (they formally refused her, then appealed against being named when the council tried to name them regardless). I tried to move her siblings (also primary )to her school but there is no space. Both schools start at exactly the same time.
I am putting her siblings in breakfast club daily, so that I can get everyone to school on time. My DD would not cope in breakfast club/breakfast club would not cope with her.
I asked the council for a transport personal budget to cover this cost, which is far cheaper than a taxi to take my DD to school. I have said that if they refuse this on principle, we would accept a taxi, but this is a far less efficient use of funds as it would be a lot more expensive.
The council have refused on the basis that my DD could be late everyday, and apparently her school says that is fine. The school have never told me this, in fact I have been told the exact opposite by the class teacher.
As she has autism, being late and changing her routine would cause her a great deal of distress. I also view her learning as important and do not consider it reasonable that she misses the first part of school everyday.
Can anyone advise on the legal basis here? Siblings are too young to travel independently to school (one is in infants), and my DD has a blue badge and complex needs and therefore cannot travel independently.

Disabled children have multiple barriers to accessing education, removing as many of these as possible is fair. Supporting parents whose access to work is limited by their caring responsibilities is also fair, given how much money informal carers save tax payers at every turn.

The lack of flexibility of thinking on the local authorities part is ridiculous. They’d rather pay for transportation to school than pay a much smaller amount to cover breakfast club to enable a mum to get her child to school. Such short sighted thinking, which should definitely be questioned.

The ableism on Mumsnet is staggering. There really is a problem with the ethos here.

I have asked for this thread to be deleted as I have already had good advice from a minority of posters, and the benefits bashing/ableist comments are not helpful to anyone.

Thank you to Eridian for calling out ableist posters.

Well if “most people” would expect that then “most people” are extremely ignorant and those “most people” have nothing of any value to add to threads on this topic because they don’t even understand the law, or the purpose of DLA, or how the education system works, so those “most people” would be better off either:

1. educating themselves about the law, the education system and economics before offering their completely valueless “opinion” on a topic about which they have zero knowledge or understanding;

2. scrolling straight past such threads in future knowing that they neither have any experience of this or any relevant opinion to add that isn’t completely detached from reality and the law; or

3. reading the thread while keeping quiet and actually learning something about the topic from the posters on the thread who actually DO know something about the subject matter.

That way they won’t embarrass themselves again by exposing their extreme ignorance and as also being so arrogant as to think that their completely ignorant opinions are remotely relevant or of interest to anybody else, while also demonstrating something bordering on sociopathy by attacking a stranger who has asked for advice with completely irrelevant, made up nonsense that made her so distressed that she asked Mumsnet to delete the thread.

This is a parenting website. Parents of disabled children should be able to ask for advice without being abused because you disagree with UK law. Direct such complaints to your MP in future. The OP is not responsible for the failings of the UK state education system.

Perhaps the posters who have behaved in this manner to the OP should post an apology to her?

Definitely one for the annual review. As a teacher, I think they are bordering on exclusion by saying she can miss the start of each day.

I’m not one for punctuality awards etc. but I do find having a latecomer quite disruptive. Generally that child is in a bit of a tiz until break time.

The ableism on Mumsnet is staggering, I agree. Such comments would never be allowed to stand if they were about race or another protected characteristic but despite many posters having raised this with Mumsnet multiple times nothing has been done to stamp it out. It’s disgusting that you couldn’t seek advice on a clearly expressed point about the law without receiving this discriminatory and disgusting bile in return.

You are doing any incredibly difficult thing and deserve respect and applause, not insults and attacks.

Don’t take it to heart. You have to remind yourself that over half of people have under-average IQ!

Thank you for the teacher's perspective.

I agree that it lateness is not in anyone's best interests: my child's, the other children, or the teacher. This is even more the case due to her needs as she would find it distressing to arrive late to an already bust classroom, having missed out on learning.

I have asked for this thread to be deleted but Mumsnet have refused.

It's a pity that there is no pro-active action against the ableist posters, or to create a better ethos on the site. Deleting the most offensive posts really does little in this situation.

@Senmater One of my posts was deleted because it was a reply to a now-deleted post.

What I’d said in there I think was important though, before the thread vanishes!

Your DD can’t walk to school therefore the LA must provide transport. It’s that simple. No policy or any other consideration is relevant if this is the named school on her EHCP.

And that she is entitled to a FULL TIME education (also per the Education Act, as for all children) and therefore the proposal that she arrives late every day is also unlawful and she’d not receive a full time education.

They may well try to push the responsibility onto you to get her there, or try to quote unlawful “policies” they have tried to layer locally on top of the law, but none of this is relevant. The law is clear: she cannot walk to the school they have allocated to her so she must have LA funded transport. The end.

Don’t let them fob you off and if they try contact IPSEA or SOSSEN.

So sorry for the horrible, spiteful and ignorant comments you’ve had to endure here.

Mumsnet really should be banning these posters. Have they refused to do anything about it?

Imagine if you swapped the word “disabled” for “black”. These posters would (rightly) be banned instantly. It’s disgraceful that continually this type of abuse of disabled people and their families is allowed to go on here.

Thank you. I wasn't referring to any of your posts as offensive of course. Yours have been helpful to tell me exactly what I needed to know with regards to the law. I have fed this back to the council. We will see what happens (but over a term has passed while they give multiple refusals so I am not particularly hopeful)

Unfortunately I have seen that Mumsnet do not take any action against racist posters as well: I have raised this when I have seen outright racist posts against Jews, and the posters did not even receive a temporary ban. There is a real issue here.

Simply deleting the most offensive posts, on request, is reactionary, and does nothing to improve the ethos of the site.

No need to be so rude.

Sorry if I missed this OP but are you on UC? Breakfast club should be covered under childcare costs for claiming 85% back. Just thinking on a practical note in terms of costs

I think as so often there are genuinely useful posts on this thread too. It's always a shame when someone with expertise troubles to type out a detailed, highly educated reply and it gets deleted along with the "most people assume"s. I can see why MN is reluctant to delete this stuff that will be read and be useful to others in similar situations.

It's just a shame there is quite a lot of less well informed opinion and incorrect assumptions to pick through to get to it.

It is painfully slow. They will delay and delay and delay at every stage of every process because every week that they delay required provision (or transport) is money saved for them and therefore the financial incentive is for them to obstruct everything even when they know that legally they are in the wrong.

The primary problem with the education system isn’t the law as it stands, it is a lack of enforcement. In every other profession (law, medicine, finance) the regulator enforces the law, robustly. It is not left to clients/ patients/ customers to do so. For individual parents to have to do this with education is ridiculous.

98% of SEND tribunals are won by parents and have been for many years. Therefore it is clear that this is systemic, deliberate law breaking by LAs to try to save money, deliberate non-compliance and attempts to circumvent the law for as long as possible. They do this because unlike in any other legal proceedings (or in regulatory cases in other sectors) there are NO penalities for this. In other professions there would be removal of professional qualifications, banning from work in the sector, personal and organisational fines, and in cases of deliberate or ongoing unlawful behaviour, prison sentences.

This is normal enforcement in every other regulated sector, and in this sector the people involved are vulnerable minors. OFSTED state they won’t even investigate individual cases! The law is meaningless and not followed because there’s no enforcement at all, no consequences.

Therefore LAs make the calculation that every month they delay provision by frustrating the legal process deliberately they save money. All tribunals order them to do, a year or 18 months later, is what they should have done in the first place.

It’s not the law that needs changing, it’s the enforcement of it. There’s no point having laws if those who have to comply with them can ignore them and shrug like it’s a joke and know they can do so with impunity and no consequences. Proper enforcement would also lead to more whistleblowing because people would know that their own career was on the line, if found to be complicit. This isn’t extreme, it’s literally how enforcement works in every other regulated profession.

The single best measure the Government could take would be to put a proper regulator in place who will treat these issues as what they are: systemic and deliberate law breaking on a scandalous mass scale.

The 2014 laws don’t need changing, they just need implementing properly because in the last 12 years they have never been enforced. It’s become like the wild-west where the law is treated as optional.

Then parents are forced to fight these years long legal battles to enforce their children’s most basic right to an education. How disgusting, in the UK in 2026 for that to be the case, when developing countries would be scathed in public for not doing so. And each issue is treated like an isolated case, like it might be a genuine “mistake” on the part of the LA or a genuine “disagreement” about the level of needs when the fact that 98% of cases are won by parents proves this is not true and it is systemic, deliberate law breaking.

Always check the law itself and quote it specifically setting out their legal responsibilities. The whole things is so disgusting and I know how exhausting and soul destroying it is to go through. You have done really well to get your DD moved to a school that is appropriate for her. If they have named this school then they have to get her there, don’t let them circumvent the law and try to weasel out of it.

Your post was rude.

Sincerely wishing you good luck OP.
Hope it gets sorted out.❤

It is utterly ridiculous for the LA to think that it is acceptable for a child to be late for school everyday never mind recommend it.
I am a well-educated, academically able adult who was doing a personal interest type class (so fairly informal). I had to be late for every session for a term and a half because I had to accompany my disabled son to a course of medical treatment. I found it really hard to settle and learn when I was constantly late. So much so that it was one of the reasons I am repeating the basic course this year rather than moving to the next level.
The impact on a child who already has difficulties would be, without exaggeration, disastrous.

No, my post wasn't rude. It was merely a difference of opinion.That's the nature of forums.

Your “opinion” is not relevant if it demonstrates total ignorance of the law and the split of responsibilities between the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and Local Authorities, and reiterated points already factually refuted earlier in the thread (which you clearly didn’t read before posting your “opinion”).

I think many of us have moved on from the 2016 idiocy of “ we have had enough of experts” (I mean, what kind of arrogant and delusional person would you have to be to think you know as much as an expert on a topic of which you have no experience or knowledge? I simply can’t imagine being that delusional and arrogant, to think my opinion on any topic is equally as valid as someone else’s even if it relates to their profession or they have detailed knowledge of it through experience which I do not have) to “we have had enough of uninformed, ignorant, lazy people who can’t be bothered to learn anything about a topic or listen to those who do know about it yet we are so supremely arrogant that they think everyone should all be regaled with their ignorant and offensive comments about it and accept these ignorant “opinions” as equally valid to the well-informed comments of people who actually know about the topic in question, based on facts and law”.

Hence such “opinions” demonstrating complete ignorance and no basis whatsoever in law or fact being called out as such because the posters making them have nothing of value to add to the discussion that they could conceivably think anybody else would be interested in hearing. Their comments demonstrate that they have not knowledge of the topic upon which they have decided they have an “opinion” that everyone must hear; their comments simply amount to us all having to read or filter out their ignorance and prejudice, and feel quite embarrassed for them.

It’s tiresome, especially when they haven’t even bothered to read the earlier comments in the thread which already demonstrate that their “opinions” are factually wrong.

And again, the OP did not ask you for your opinions on the structure of the education system or whether you agree with the law as it stands. That is NOT the purpose of the thread and multiple posters who should be ashamed of themselves have used it as an excuse to pile onto her because they are unhappy with the structure of UK state education. This is not the OP’s fault and not what she asked. If you want this to improve, tell the Education Secretary not to introduce reforms that will make the problem worse for all children, including those who don’t have SEN.

None of these spiteful comments have anything to do with the OP’s question and most of them are also economically illiterate.

DLA is to be spent on the needs of the disabled child. Not breakfast club for their siblings so that the disabled child can get to school, which the LA is legally required to fund.

Most children with autism who are entitled to a mobility car will not be in a mainstream school as they would ,either have to qualify under the severe mental impairment route or virtually unable to walk ie their behaviour is so exreme it renders them virtuslly unable to walk
For those that do qualify most are taught in a special schoolthe vast majority of children in such schools getl transport regardless of wether they have a moblity car becsuee its the safest most efficient way of getting .say 200+ severly disabled children calmly into class.

I just hope all of the vile posters are proud of themselves. The OP, who has clearly worked very hard maintaining employment AND fighting for her disabled child getting an appropriate school place (which can take YEARS) and meanwhile looking after her other children also came here for advice on a simple legal point and has been attacked by these disgraceful people.

I doubt she’ll want to post another thread again, will she, if she needs support in future?

This is a parenting website and you’ve just attacked a vulnerable parent looking for support and advice.

Well done.

In this case though, the OP said she'd tried to get her other children into the same primary school as her child with autism. From that, I would take that it's a mainstream primary school and that it is local to where she lives.