Sen transport times

[beautifulgirls]

Can anyone please point me to the official guidance on maximum transport times for children to and from school. DD taxi seems to be leaving earlier, getting home waaay later and though DD is happy enough we are not. I have seen written here 45 mins each way for primary age children but can't find published official figures. If she is exceeding these figures then I guess the local authority transport dept would be the place to contact?

here you go - written in 2007, Department for Education tried (and failed) to overhaul it last year.

My 2 travel 1hr 20mins each way. They don' mind and its worth it as school is brilliant, but agree it is a very long day!

The DfE did have a second go at revamping the transport guidance and it's now at www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/331654/Home_to_school_travel_and_transport_statutory_guidance.pdf . Though they did their best to water down LA obligations, fortunately the journey time guidance is still there.

It's a maximum of 45 for all chikdren, but chikdren with SEN shoukd have their needs considered and so therefore their max time coukd be less.

This 45 mins can be overridden due to distance if the overall benefit for the child outweighs the cons, but it cannot be overridden for convenience for the LA.

I know this because I was successful at getting my child's times reduced and preventing the merge of 3 taxis into a minibus.

Thanks all - her school is 25-30 mins drive with no traffic so there is no good reason for her journey to be the length that it is. The taxi driver she has is lovely so we are a little concerned about bringing things up officially and let it lie last year, but this year the times are just worse again and she can't keep getting bumped on another 10 minutes here and there. 12 seater not a 7 seater taxi any more, and DD is at the start and end of the run am and pm. Any extra children add more time to DDs journey and so we are going to have to act.

My LA are trying to add more children to DS's route and increase his 75 minute journey even more. As he is 7, I brought up the 45 minute thing but was told by the Transport Manager that the 45 minutes is a) only a guideline, b) only applies to in borough journeys. He was adamant that there is no limit to out of borough journey length times, and said that to be reasonable, they would add in rest stops.

Will have to study the links above to see if I can strengthen my case!

No, it's not a maximum of 45 minutes for all children - it's 45 minutes for primary age and 75 minutes for secondary. See paragraph 34 of the new guidance.

I think I've heard that argument about the maximum only applying to in-borough journeys before, and it's rubbish. However, times do have to stretch sometimes for children with SEN just because there are fewer special schools.

I think I heard that IPSEA are quite keen on taking on these cases about long journey times for SEN transport, so if you have trouble it could be worth contacting them.

Sorry. I meant primary kids because the soaps child is primary age.

Ask him to send you the legislation AND policy that states this oh applies to in-borough journeys.

Tbh, I'm now wondering if you live close to me because I battled (and won) against exactly the same arguments put forward by our 'Transport Manager'.

Yes, Star, I do live very close to you!

He was adamant that out of borough journeys could be limitless, and this is backed up by the borough's official Transport document which is on their website. You're right though, no legal basis for this is provided, so thanks, I will ask for clarification on that

In fact he says things are set to get worse next Sep as the transport between our 2 boroughs is merged and so DS and his current travel mates will likely be bunged onto another route (already comprising 8 children/ teenagers) which departs from the neighbouring (but still 30 minutes away at school run time) borough.

Someone did worry me, saying that if I make a fuss it could be used against me, as in they would argue it is reason to move ds to a local special school. And considering they have already tried to pull him out of his school once this year I'm pretty nervy still!

Thanks Veritata, I will definitely try and speak to IPSEA if it comes to a head

If you PM me your email address I'll send you all the stuff I hit them with that made them change their decision.

Tbh I am outraged (and surprised but no idea why) that they are using those same illegal arguments again when they had pleaded complete ignorance to what I was saying and actually had to go to their own lawyers before conceding I was right and reverting back to not only original plans but ones even more favourable to my Ds.

And also, you should set up a Parents transport user group, even if it is just an email group.

At 3:15 on a Friday, The LA announced the merge of 3 taxis to a minibus extending ds' travel times to 3.5 hours per day to start the following Monday morning.

By 4pm when ds' taxi arrived I had written a letter, with my contact details on to hand to the kids on the bus and sent an email to the school with a request that they pass it on to all in my LA using transport. They did.

I also put in a stage one complaint via email and labelled it as such.

When they responded with bollox the next day I put in a stage 2 immediately on the basis that we had exhausted stage 1.

Have just PMd you Star, thanks so much!

Sounds like you did amazing work...they MUST just count on most people accepting what they say as gospel!

Can't believe they are still spouting the same lines tbh. Though they never did agree they were acting illegally when they gave in for us. They said it was due to parents not being happy.

Like LA's EVER make costly financial decisions on the basis of parents' happiness.....lol.

Why I'm so shocked is because I genuinely thought they were stupid, but now enlightened. I so wanted to believe I'd moved to a Tim Nice but Dim LA instead of one full of psychopaths.