Summary: Mr Y complains the Council did not properly consider the application for his child, D, to receive home to school transport. We find procedural fault which, on the balance of probabilities, meant the Council did not provide transport when it should have done. The Council has agreed to make a symbolic payment of £900 in recognition of the education D missed. The Council will also pay £500 in recognition of the avoidable distress caused to Mr Y and his family.

The complaint

1. Mr Y complains the Council failed to properly consider the school transport application for his child who has special educational needs. As a direct result Mr Y says his child was unable to access education between September 2024 and January 2025.
2. Mr Y says the Council’s decision to refuse transport caused significant inconvenience and distress for his whole family.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered evidence provided by Mr Y and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. Mr Y and the Council now have an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider any comments before making a final decision.
7. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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What I found

SEN Transport and Accompaniment

8. The statutory government guidance ‘Travel to School for Children of Compulsory School Age’ says councils need to assess eligibility on the grounds of special educational needs, disability or mobility problems on a case-by-case basis. Councils should take account of the child’s physical ability to walk to school and any health and safety issues related to their special educational needs, disability or mobility problems. Councils may take account of whether they would be able to walk to school if they were accompanied by an adult.
9. Children will not normally be eligible solely because of their parent’s work commitments or caring responsibilities. However, councils must consider cases where the parent says there are good reasons why they cannot accompany their child or make other suitable arrangements for their journey. We expect to see evidence of the council’s decision on accompaniment based on the individual circumstances of the case.
10. The law allows councils to meet their duty for eligible children in a number of ways, if the council has the consent of the parent. With the agreement of a parent, the council might:
• provide a travel allowance to enable the parent to make their own travel arrangements for their child;
• pay a cycling allowance to enable a child to cycle to school;
• provide independent travel training to a child where it is appropriate to do so;
• provide someone to escort or ‘buddy’ the child, for example when they are walking or wheeling to and from school.

School Transport appeals

11. Councils should have an appeals process in place for parents who wish to appeal about the eligibility of their child for travel support. Part 5 of 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: Within 40 working days of receipt of the parent’s request for an independent appeal panel to consider written and verbal representations, 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.
12. The guidance says the appeal panel must notify the parent in writing of the outcome within five days of the hearing. The letter should clearly explain:
• whether they have upheld the local authority’s original decision;
• why they reached that decision;
• how the review was conducted;
• the factors considered in reaching their decision; and
• any other agencies or departments were consulted as part of the review.

Key events relevant to the complaint

13. This section of the decision statement does not provide a chronology of every event which happened but instead provides an overview of the key issues.
14. Mr Y’s child, who I will call D, has complex special educational needs (SEN) and intellectual disabilities. D has an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) which sets out how their special educational needs will be met in school.
15. In February 2024 the Council amended D’s EHCP to name the secondary school which D would attend from September 2024. Mr Y disagreed with the school named and lodged an appeal with the SEND Tribunal.
16. D’s EHCP said: “[D] can become emotionally dysregulated very quickly which can lead to challenging behaviours” and “[D] has no sense of stranger danger and will run off if not closely supervised. [D] is also vulnerable”
17. In the meantime, Mr Y also applied for school transport. D received school transport whilst at primary school and Mr Y wanted the arrangements to continue when D started secondary school.
18. The Council wrote to Mr Y on 8 March 2024 to confirm its decision to refuse the application. The letter said:
• D “does not have any health needs that affect [their] ability to access walking or public transport to school accompanied by a parent or responsible adult”.
• The distance from D’s home to school is 1.89 miles.
• D can use free public transport to travel to school.
19. Dissatisfied with the outcome, Mr Y appealed the Council’s decision. He explained the issue was not the home to school distance but D’s inability to walk to school safely. Mr Y said D is Autistic and easily becomes dysregulated. Mr Y also explained that he has a younger child, who is also Autistic, and it is very challenging to safely walk them to school together.
20. The Council responded to the first stage appeal on 23 April 2024. It said:
• It is the responsibility of parents to ensure their children attend school regularly. The Council referred to the school transport policy which says the Council does not seek to address situations when parents find it difficult to get their children to school due to competing demands on time and domestic circumstances.
• Parents can explore the option of enrolling children into a breakfast and/or afterschool club to help with the logistics of dropping off more than one child.
21. On 20 May 2024 the NHS provided a letter in support of D’s EHCP. Amongst other points, this letter said that D experiences “reduced danger awareness with requirement for constant supervision”.
22. Mr Y appealed the Council’s decision again. The Council responded to Mr Y’s second stage appeal on 7 August 2024. It said:
• Depending on the outcome of the assessment, the Council will make a provisional offer for D to receive a ‘travel buddy’ from September. This is a person trained to provide guidance and support to help people with disabilities travel around London.
• The buddy will support D to and from school daily on public transport.
23. Two days later, an Educational Psychologist (EP) completed their report. This summarised D’s behaviour and noted that D may:
• Run away without regard to danger.
• Often attempt to hug strangers and may need to be physically prevented from doing this as D does not always respond to verbal requests to stop.
• Need two adults to keep D safe in the community.
24. The Council confirmed its decision to allocate a travel buddy on 12 August 2024.
25. D’s secondary school wrote a letter on 13 September 2024 which said: “the use of public transport would put [D] and [their] carers in a very dangerous situation, especially now [D] is getting stronger and has the potential to be challenging and can overpower [their] carers when out”.
26. The SEND Tribunal considered D’s EHCP appeal and issued an order on 11 October 2024. While the Tribunal noted it did not have jurisdiction to make orders regarding D’s transport, it said:

“The school transport team have failed to give proper consideration to the very clear safety issues which arise from [D] travelling to school by public transport. That safety risk does not, in the Tribunal’s view, appear to be eliminated by the provision of a travel buddy. [D] remains in danger in the community due to [their] risk of absconding (as [D] did on the school trip) and [their] lack of bodily boundaries”

“In the Tribunal’s view, it is not reasonable to expect [D] to walk or travel on public transport, even with the provision of a travel buddy, as a direct result of [D’s] special educational needs. The Tribunal hopes that the LA will be prepared to reconsider the matter and make a fresh decision in respect of [D’s] new placement”.

27. Following the Tribunal’s order, the Council issued an amended EHCP on 7 November 2024. This named a specialist school in Section I.
28. Mr Y made another application for transport to the newly allocated school. The Council responded to the application on 28 November and confirmed its decision to maintain the offer of a travel buddy.
29. Mr Y submitted an appeal. A senior manager reviewed the application and decided to offer transport assistance but noted there was no space on the school bus in question.
30. On 3 December 2024 the Council wrote to Mr Y confirming its offer to pay a travel allowance for D to receive taxi transport to and from school. The Council confirmed a responsible adult would need to escort D. The Council agreed to backdate the allowance to November 2024 when the school place was allocated.
31. Mr Y complained to the Council. He said the travel allowance was not suitable because he works full-time and his wife is responsible for transporting two children, both with SEN, to two different schools. The Council reconsidered its position and agreed to increase the daily allowance so the taxi could take both D and their sibling to their respective schools.
32. Mr Y said the offer was unsuitable because the taxi did not include a passenger assistant for D.
33. On 17 December Mr Y’s solicitors wrote to the Council with a Pre-Action Protocol (PAP) letter outlining Mr Y’s intention to seek a Judicial Review of the Council’s decision regarding D’s transport.
34. The Council responded on 23 December 2024. After reviewing the case, and the capacity of the school bus service, the Council overturned its original decision and granted a place for D on the bus from 6 January 2025.

Was there fault in the Council’s actions causing injustice?

35. Our role is not to decide whether the Council should provide school transport, as we are not a second appeal body. Instead, our focus is on reviewing the procedure followed by the Council to determine whether it acted in accordance with the law and relevant guidance, rather than replacing the Council’s judgment with our own.
36. In our view, there is procedural fault because the Council did not follow the statutory home-to-school transport guidance, which states that decisions and appeal outcome letters must be reasoned. This means letters should include an explanation of the factors considered and how the decision was reached. In this case, the absence of a clear rationale makes it difficult to understand whether the Council followed the correct process and whether it properly considered all relevant information.
37. The Council has not demonstrated how it considered the contents of D’s EHCP, relevant medical letters, and recommendations made by the Tribunal regarding D’s inability to walk to school or use public transport. These documents contained important and relevant information about D’s needs and limitations. The absence of any clear reference to them in the decision-making process creates doubt about whether these documents were properly considered by the Council.
38. The records show the Council only changed its decision after receiving the PAP letter, even though the letter provided no new information about D or their transport needs. We have found the Council failed to properly consider the information it already held. As a result, it did not approve D’s transport support when it should have done and at the point of Mr Y’s original application.
39. Although the Council offered a travel allowance for taxi transport in early December, the statutory guidance makes clear that such arrangements must be agreed with the parents. In this case, Mr Y did not give his consent and instead explained why a taxi was not suitable for D. Furthermore, internal emails show the allowance was offered due to the lack of available seats on the school bus, rather than because it met D’s needs. This approach is not in line with the statutory guidance, which requires that transport arrangements be based on the individual needs of the child, not on the availability or convenience of existing services.
40. The fault meant that D could not consistently and regularly attend school between September and January. This is echoed in the Tribunal order which says that D could only attend school for two days each week when Mr Y was able to take her. In our view, the failure to provide suitable transport earlier had a direct and avoidable impact on D’s school attendance. The fault also caused distress and inconvenience to D’s younger sibling and parents, which the Council has agreed to remedy with the actions listed below.

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Action

41. Within four weeks of my final decision, the Council will:
• Apologise to Mr Y for the faults we have identified in this statement. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
• Pay £900 to Mr Y for D’s benefit. This is in recognition of the educational provision which D missed during the Autumn Term of 2024 as a result of the fault we have identified in this statement.
• Pay £500 to Mr Y. This is in recognition of the avoidable distress caused to him and his family. This includes the impact on his working arrangements and the avoidable inconvenience which the family experienced when trying to ensure the transport of two children with SEN.
42. Within eight weeks of my final decision, the Council will also:
• Provide refresher guidance to staff involved in SEN school transport decisions and appeals. This could include a briefing paper, circular or evidence of a discussion at a team meeting. The Council should remind staff to ensure that all relevant factors (such as the child’s needs, family circumstances, and travel suitability) are properly considered and clearly reflected in decision letters. This is to ensure compliance with the statutory guidance: ‘Travel to School for Children of Compulsory School Age’.
43. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

44. I find fault causing injustice which the Council has agreed to remedy with the actions outlined in the section above.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman