Consultation on school transport policies from September 2024

Overview

We want your views on proposed changes to our Home to School Transport Policy (0 to 25 year olds) and our Post-16 Transport Policy Statement for 2024 to 2025.

Home to school travel for eligible children is a statutory service that we must deliver, and the Council’s school transport policies provide the framework for the services we provide.

We have reviewed our Home to School Transport Policy as a result of the Department for Education issuing revised guidance on travel to school for children of compulsory school age. We have proposed some changes to our Home to School Transport Policy (0-25 years) and some of our proposed changes are also relevant to our Post-16 Transport Policy Statement. The changes we have proposed are intended to make our school transport policies clearer and easier to understand.

Any agreed changes will apply for the 2024 to 2025 academic year onwards and will apply to both new and existing customers.

Proposed changes to school transport policy

The Home to School Transport Policy sets out our approach to providing transport to schools / educational settings for students up to 19 years old (up to 25 years for students with special educational needs and disabilities).

The Post-16 Transport Policy Statement sets out transport arrangements for students aged 16 and over. It specifies the transport arrangements we consider necessary for sixth form students to attend education or training.

Some pupils are eligible for home to school travel assistance because the walking route to their nearest suitable school is within the statutory walking limits, but the walking route is unsafe. We encourage safe, sustainable ways of getting to school and we aim to reduce car/bus journeys by working within our budget to make walking routes to school safe.

Where a walking route previously assessed as unsafe is made safe, the transport eligibility for all pupils who could be using the walking route will be reviewed.

We have made some changes to our school transport policies to make them clearer and easier to understand:

• clarification provided  
  • on travel assistance eligibility for children aged 0-4 years
  • that the nearest suitable school used for the transport eligibility assessment may not be the same as the catchment school or nearest school for admissions purposes
  • on the criteria for home to school transport for pupils with SEND
  • on the school transport application and review process

• more information on
  • Personal Transport Budgets
  • the educational placement for pupils/students with an EHCP
  • medical needs while onboard transport
  • transport for pupils/students with SEND transferring to a different school/setting

All proposed updates are highlighted in yellow in the draft policy documents below. We want to hear your views on these updates and whether they have made our policies easier to understand.

We are not proposing any further substantial changes to the Home to School Transport Policy or the Post-16 Transport Policy Statement 2024 to 2025.

Related documents

Before you respond to this consultation, please have a look at the following documents:

• Draft Home to School Transport Policy (0 to 25 year olds) (PDF 0.37MB)
• Draft Post-16 Transport Policy Statement 2024 to 2025 (PDF 0.32MB)

Find out more about home to school transport.

How to have your say

You can tell us your views in one of the following ways:

• Complete the online survey using the link at the end of the page
• Complete, and return, a printed version of the survey (PDF 0.22MB)
• Email us at H2STpolicyconsultation@buckinghamshire.gov.uk
• Write to us at Home to school transport consultation 2023, Client Transport, Buckinghamshire Council, Walton Street, Aylesbury, HP20 1UA

If you have any questions about this consultation, please email us at H2STpolicyconsultation@buckinghamshire.gov.uk, phone us on 01296 387439.

Please tell us your views by midnight on Monday 29 January 2024.

What happens next

We will consider all the feedback we receive before deciding on the proposed changes to Home to School Transport Policy and Post-16 Transport Policy Statement. The decision will be made by the Leader of Buckinghamshire Council in May 2024.

Once the decision has been made, we will publish the new Home to School Transport Policy and Post-16 Transport Policy Statement.

They will apply to school transport from September 2024. We will update this page with the outcome of the consultation.

Privacy

We will use the information you provide here only for this activity. We will store the information securely in line with data protection laws and will not share or publish any personal details. For more information about data and privacy, please see our Privacy Policy.

If you have questions about data and privacy, please email us on dataprotection@buckinghamshire.gov.uk. Or write to our Data Protection Officer at Buckinghamshire Council, The Gateway, Gatehouse Road, Aylesbury, HP19 8FF.