Summary: There was fault in the way the Council communicated its home to school transport policy for September 2025 school admissions. There was also fault in how it considered Mrs X’s appeal for home to school transport. These faults have caused Mrs X frustration and uncertainty. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X and offer her a fresh stage two appeal hearing.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s decision not to provide her child Y with free transport to their catchment secondary school following a change in the Council’s home to school transport policy. Mrs X says the Council failed to properly communicate the new policy which meant they were unable to make an informed choice regarding Y’s secondary school. She says this has caused her frustration and uncertainty.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. When considering complaints we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
7. I gave Mrs X and the Council an opportunity to comment on a draft of my decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

8. Local authorities must make suitable home to school travel arrangements as they consider necessary for ‘eligible children’ of compulsory school age to attend their ‘qualifying school’. The travel arrangements must be made and provided free of charge. The relevant qualifying school is the nearest school with places available that provides education appropriate to the age, ability and aptitude of the child, and any special educational needs the child may have. ‘Eligible children’ includes children living outside ‘statutory walking distance’ from the school (two miles for children under eight, three miles for children aged eight and above).
9. Councils should have an appeals process in place for parents who wish to appeal about the eligibility of their child for travel support.
10. The statutory guidance recommends councils adopt the following appeals process:

• Stage 1: review by a senior officer. Within 20 working days of receiving a parent’s written request to appeal the decision, a senior officer reviews the original decision and sends the parent a detailed written notification of the outcome of the review setting out the nature of the decision, how the review was conducted, what was taken into account, the rationale for the decision reached, and how to escalate their case to stage 2; and
• Stage 2: review by independent appeal panel. Within 40 working days of receipt of the parent’s request to escalate to stage 2, an independent appeal panel considers written and verbal representations. Within five working days following this, a detailed decision is sent setting out: the nature of the decision reached; how the review was conducted; what factors were considered; the rationale for the decision reached; and information about appealing to us. (Department of Education, Travel to school for children of compulsory school age statutory guidance 2023, Part 5)

11. The statutory code of guidance sets out that:
• The statutory walking distances are used to determine whether a child is eligible for free travel to school. This is not necessarily the shortest distance by road. The route may include footpaths, bridleways, other pathways and alternative entrances to the school.
• Where the schools are beyond walking distance, councils may consider it more appropriate to measure the shortest road route or the straight line distance. It should be made clear in the council’s school travel policy how the route will be measured.
• It should be clear to parents how they can find out which is their nearest school for admissions purposes and which is the nearest for school free transport purposes.
• Councils must publish their travel policy on their website and include information about their school travel policy in their composite prospectus for school admissions.
12. The guidance says an effective school travel policy will:
• Be easy for parents to find on the council’s website;
• Be clearly written so that parents may easily understand it;
• Enable parents to understand the circumstances in which a child is eligible for free travel to school;
• Tell parents how and when they should apply for free travel to school; and
• Tell parents how they may appeal against the council’s decision in relation to travel to school for their child.

The Council’s home to school travel policy

13. The Council operates catchment areas for admission to some of the schools in its area. This means those living in a certain geographical area get priority if a school is oversubscribed. Until 2024 the Council provided school transport to the catchment area school for those living over three miles away.
14. In September 2024 the Council implemented a new Home To School Travel Policy. Under the new policy the Council only provides free transport to new applicants attending the nearest qualifying school to home. This meant certain towns and villages no longer qualified for transport to a catchment school and the nearest qualifying school may be in another council’s area.
15. The policy explained the nearest suitable school for school travel purposes may not be the catchment school used for admissions purposes. It said:
• ‘When deciding on eligibility for assistance with transport, the measurement from home to school will be taken from the fixed point within the property to the nearest entrance point (not always the main entrance) to the school following the nearest available walked route, as defined by the Council’s Geographical Information System (GIS)’.
• ‘The distance is not the shortest distance by road and the route may include footpaths, public rights of way, bridleways and other pathways identified on the GIS’.
• ‘Parents have the right to preference any school of their choice when applying for a school place, they do not however have a right to free-of-charge travel arrangements to that school. Travel eligibility will be assessed in line with the eligibility criteria in this policy. If the nearest school is undersubscribed with places available, then it will be the nearest suitable school for travel purposes, and free travel would not be provided to an alternative school that is further away’.
• ‘If the nearest school is fully subscribed without places available, then the Council will need to assess if the child could have secured a place had one been applied for. This will be done by comparing the child with the last child to be offered a place at the school and determining which of them would have higher priority. This will often be a straightforward matter of determining which child lives closest to the school’.
16. The Council operates a two stage appeal procedure: a stage one review by a senior officer and a stage two appeal heard by the Council’s school transport appeals committee (a small group of elected councillors). The policy states that the committee considers the policy guidelines but may recommend departure from those guidelines in exceptional cases.

Publication of the new home to school transport policy

17. The Council carried out consultation regarding the new policy in early 2024 including webinars and face to face events in March 2024. The Council agreed the policy at its executive meeting in July 2024.
18. In early September 2024, the Council sent an email to schools with a request that it be forwarded to parents of those due to start secondary school in September 2025 about the secondary school admission process. The email included one line which said ‘there have been some changes in eligibility to home to school transport, so if this is an important factor when choosing a school please go to: [weblink]. Here you can use the online tool to find your nearest school to your home address’.
19. The link went to the Council’s School Transport page which contained two separate links to the policy, one of which linked to the 2019 policy instead of the new policy. The Council corrected this error in March 2025. The Council’s school transport page also included a distance calculator which would list the nearest schools to home.
20. In September 2024 the Council also sent schools via its weekly email under the ‘information, updates and guidance’ section ‘a request that the information attached is made available to parents as part of secondary open evenings’. The attached information was a slide presentation which set out that the revised home to school travel policy was being implemented and ‘the main eligibility criteria for eligible pupils is for travel to their nearest suitable school with places available’.
21. The Council’s website for starting secondary school included a link to the September 2024 home to school transport policy. A line on the website page said, ‘we provide free school transport to the nearest school to your home if it is over the required walking distance’.
22. The application disclaimer also said, ‘Please note if you apply for and are allocated a school which is not your nearest suitable school with places available you will be responsible for getting your child to school’.

What happened

23. In the normal admissions round Mrs X successfully applied for her child to attend the local catchment area school, school B from September 2025. In May 2025 the Council wrote to advise Mrs X that Y did not qualify for free home to school transport because school B was not the nearest suitable school.
24. In June 2025 Mrs X appealed against the Council’s decision to refuse school transport. She said she and her husband were working parents and were not available to take or collect from school. As a Council resident she believed she was required to choose the catchment school. If she had known about the new policy she said they would have taken this into account and possibly made a different decision. She said the cost of a paid travel pass was a large amount to pay and the walking distance to the nearest school, which was in another council’s area, was an unsafe route.
25. The Council responded at stage one of the appeals process later that month but did not agree the appeal. It said the decision was in line with the policy. School B was over 5 miles away and another school in a neighbouring council’s area was 2.634 miles away. It said it was not required to take work arrangements into account when assessing eligibility for free home to school transport and the changes to the policy were widely publicised. It said the fact that the nearest school was in another authority’s area did not make it unavailable when assessing eligibility for school transport.
26. Mrs X asked to go to stage two of the appeals procedure in July 2025. She said the new policy has caused confusion, financial strain and feelings of unfair treatment. She said the letter distributed to year 6 pupils in September 2024 failed to make clear the word catchment was removed from the policy. She said this misled many parents who made decisions based on long-standing catchment entitlements. She said the cost of a paid pass was unaffordable. She asked that the policy be reviewed.
27. The Council’s school transport appeals committee heard the appeal in August 2025. The Council’s report to the committee set out that school B was not the nearest school to the home address and the choice of school was parental preference. It said the Council was not required to take work arrangements into account when assessing eligibility for home to school transport. It said ‘The changes to the Council’s home to school travel policy were widely publicised via a variety of means. The policy change has been widely reported in the media and on the Council’s website alongside the admissions applications process’.
28. Mrs X did not attend the appeal. The clerk’s notes of the appeal record the Council’s presenting officer explained school B was not the nearest school and the nearest school would have been able to offer a place had Mrs X applied. They explained the safety of the walk to the nearest school had not been assessed as Y was not attending there. If Y moved to the nearest school then the Council would assess the safety of the route. The committee decided the Council had correctly applied the policy and there were no exceptional circumstances. It did not uphold the appeal.

Findings

The change in policy

29. Mrs X does not agree with the Council’s revised policy and its decision to no longer provide free transport to the catchment or the nearest suitable school. However, it is for the Council to decide on its transport policy, and it followed the correct process in revising it, including consultation with the public. The Council is not at fault.
30. We expect councils to explain their policies clearly to enable parents to make informed decisions when applying for schools about whether their child might be eligible for school transport. The evidence shows the Council consulted widely on the new policy but there was fault in the way it was communicated. The Council’s website wrongly linked to the old policy which was fault.
31. The Council’s new policy is a significant change from its previous one. In particular, free transport is no longer automatically provided to catchment area schools over three miles away. The Council’s website referred to transport being provided to the nearest suitable school, but we would not expect parents to be experts in the subtlety of language used in Government guidance and what is meant by suitable school. A parent may wrongly assume the catchment school is the nearest suitable school. It is only within the transport policy itself that the Council states ‘the nearest qualifying school for school travel purposes may not be the catchment school used for admissions purposes’. The Council did not clearly spell out on its website or admissions form that transport would not automatically be provided to the catchment school if it was over three miles away.
32. Although the Council circulated information to all schools, this was in the ‘information, updates and guidance’ section and not in the ‘for action’ section of the email. It asked secondary schools to make parents aware there were policy changes but did not ask primary schools to highlight the changes to year 6 parents who would be applying for secondary school. The attached presentation slides emphasised free transport would be provided to the nearest suitable school but as set out above did not clearly set out that this was not necessarily the catchment school.
33. On balance, this poor communication is fault and meant Mrs X could not make a fully informed decision about which secondary school to apply for.

Mrs X’s appeal

34. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a council’s decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes it followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, the law says we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision it made.
35. At stage one of the appeal the Council said it could not take account of parents’ work commitments. This was wrong and is fault. The guidance sets out that a child will not normally be eligible solely because of work commitments, not that they could not be considered.
36. At the stage two appeal hearing, the committee made no comment on the points Mrs X raised about communication of the new policy and communication sent through school. There is no evidence the committee properly considered the impact on Mrs X of how the new policy was communicated. This was fault which leaves Mrs X with uncertainty over what decision the committee would have reached had it properly considered the information she provided about communication of the new policy. It is for the committee to decide what, if any, impact this fault may have had on Mrs X’s original school admission application and subsequent school transport application.

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Agreed Action

37. Within two months of the final decision being issued, the Council has agreed to:
1. apologise to Mrs X for the frustration and uncertainty caused by the Council’s faults. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology.
2. arrange a new second-stage appeal committee to consider Mrs X’s appeal again. The panel should comprise of new members. In particular it should consider the way the Council communicated the new policy and the impact this may have had on Mrs X.
38. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

39. I find fault causing injustice which the Council has agreed to remedy.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman