Complaints about school transport
This fact sheet is aimed primarily at parents who have been refused help from the council with their child’s transport costs to school and may be considering making a complaint to the Ombudsman.
I have been refused help with my child’s transport costs to school. Can I complain to the Ombudsman?
- Yes, in some circumstances. The Ombudsman cannot question the council’s decision, if it has been taken properly and fairly, but can consider your complaint if you think that help was refused because of some unfairness or mistake or that your application for help was not handled correctly.
- You can complain to the Ombudsman if your child goes to a community, voluntary aided or voluntary controlled school. We cannot deal with complaints about transport to independent (private) schools, foundation schools, city technology colleges or city academies unless they are named in your child’s statement of special educational needs.
How do I complain?
- You should normally complain to the council first. Councils often have more than one stage in their complaints procedure and you will usually have to complete all stages before we will look at your complaint.
- Then, if you are unhappy with the outcome, or the council is taking too long to look into the matter – we think 12 weeks is reasonable – you can complain to us.
- You should normally make your complaint to us within 12 months of realising that the council has done something wrong.
- To complain to the Ombudsman phone our Advice Team on 0300 061 0614 (8.30am to 5.00pm, Mondays to Fridays). You will be able to discuss your complaint with one of our advisers. You can text us on 0762 480 4299.
- You can complete an online complaint form at www.lgo.org.uk/making-a-complaint, or you can email us at advice@lgo.org.uk.
If you can consider my complaint what will the Ombudsman look for?
We consider whether the council has done something wrong in the way it went about dealing with your application for help. Some of the issues we can look at are that:
- the council’s policy for providing help with transport is not objective, clear and fair;
- the council failed to apply their policy properly or fairly;
- the council did not take relevant information into account in reaching its decision, or took irrelevant information into account; or
- the council delayed dealing with your application for help.
What happens if the Ombudsman finds that the council was at fault?
If we find that something has gone wrong in the way your application was dealt with that might have affected the decision, we may:
- ask the council to review its decision;
- ask the council reimburse travel costs you have already incurred; and/or
- recommend that the council reviews its policy and/or procedures, so that the problems you experienced don’t keep happening to other parents.
What if my child has special educational needs?
The council still has responsibilities for helping with home to school transport where a child has special educational needs, whether there is a statement of special educational needs or not. We can usually consider complaints where special educational needs are involved.
Examples of some complaints we have considered
Mrs X complained that the council failed to follow its own policy in its decision not to award home to school transport for her daughter who had developed mobility problems after she started secondary school.
The Ombudsman found that the council had failed to apply its education transport policy properly, its procedures for dealing with requests for help were inadequate and that it had failed to consider its duties to the child under the Disability Discrimination Act.
The council agreed to reimburse travel costs, apologised, paid compensation and improved its procedures.
Other sources of information
Our fact sheets give some general information about the most common type of complaints we receive but they cannot cover every situation. If you are not sure whether we can look into your complaint, please phone 0300 061 0614.
The Local Government Ombudsmen provide a free, independent and impartial service. We consider complaints about the administrative actions of councils and some other authorities. We cannot question what a council has done simply because someone does not agree with it. If we find something has gone wrong, such as poor service, service failure, delay or bad advice and that a person has suffered as a result the Ombudsmen aim to get it put right by recommending a suitable remedy.
Date Published: 19/02/10