Council Disputes Claims It Spent £160k On One Child’s School Transport

East Sussex County Council has disputed reports it spent almost £160,000 taking one child to and from school last year.

Last week, several media outlets reported how, in 2024, the council had spent £159,881.20 on providing home-to-school transport to a single child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

But when the LDRS approached the council to verify this figure, it said the most it spent on a single child in 2024 came to £115,737.60 — around £44,000 less than reported.

The council says this figure, which is significantly higher than what it reports to be the average amount it spends per child, is tied to an individual with “complex needs”.

The original figure had appeared in a press release published by the Liberal Democrats earlier this month.

This press release set out details of a study, which collated responses to a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests to several different local authorities.

This included a data spreadsheet setting out the figures for each of the 66 councils which responded to the FOI requests.

In the press release, a spokesman for the party noted how the study had reported the “highest individual cost of home-to-school transport for one child with SEND cost East Sussex council £150,000.”

But it appears the county council did not itself provide the £159,881.20 figure and the number seems to have been extrapolated from the council’s actual response.

It appears the council actually said it had spent “£841.48 per day” on one child in 2024.

This per day figure appeared within the council’s online disclosure log, in response to a request for the authority to provide its highest home-to-school transport spend on an individual child with SEND.

The study’s authors appear to have reached their figure by multiplying this per day cost by 190, which is the number of days a child is usually expected to attend school each year across England.

According to the council, the child had not actually attended school for 190 days in 2024, meaning the overall figure was less than had been claimed by the study.

East Sussex County Council’s own figure would still be the highest amount reported by any of the councils included in the study. But it would also appear to be less of an outlier when compared to the other authorities.

For example, the study says Milton Keynes council reported it had spent £113,100 on one child in 2024. The LDRS has been unable to verify this figure or see the response it provided to the FOI request.

It should also be noted that not all of the 66 councils named in the study responded to this part of the FOI request.

East Sussex County council has also disputed another figure presented in the study, which claimed the authority had, in 2024, spent an average of £44,089.50 per child receiving SEND home-to-school transport.

The council disputes this, saying it had actually spent an average of £11,566.57 per child during 2024.

The council reached this figure by dividing its total spend on SEND transport — which came to £19,397,137 — by 1,677, which is the number of children who receive it.

The disparity appears to be the result of how the study’s authors interpreted the council’s response to the FOI request.

According to the disclosure log, when asked to provide “the average cost per child of home to school transport for children with SEND”, the council had provided two per day figures.

These split the average costs into two categories; children who travel to school alone and children who share their school transport with at least one other.

For solo travellers in 2024, the council said it spent an average of £170 per day, while spending an average of £62.05 per day for children who share their school transport during the same period.

The figure of £44,089.50 per child appears to have been reached by adding the two per day costs together and then multiplying the result by 190,  which is (as noted above) the number of days a child is usually expected to attend school each year across England.

The study also reported the council’s overall annual spending on SEND home-to-school transport in both 2023 and 2024.

It says the council had spent a total of £15,575,886 in 2023 and £19,397,137 in 2024, noting how this equates to a 24.53 per cent increase.

A spokesperson for East Sussex County Council confirmed the 2024 figure to be accurate, while the response contained in the disclosure log also includes both figures.

An East Sussex County Council spokesperson said:

“We have a statutory duty to provide appropriate free transport to the nearest suitable school that can meet an eligible child’s SEND needs.

“We have seen an increase in costs due to the rate of inflation, as well as an increase in the number of children eligible to receive home to school transport.

"We have a robust bidding process in place for home to school transport contracts and regularly review existing contracts to ensure we are getting the best value for money.

“The highest cost of home to school transport for one individual child is due to the child’s complex needs.”