Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the amount spent in England by local authorities on home to school transport for children with special educational needs in (a) pre-16 and (b) post-16 education.
Local authorities are required to submit statements about planned and actual expenditure on education and children and young people’s services to the Secretary of State for Education. This data includes spending on home to school transport and home to post-16 provision transport. The data is available in the attached table and is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-local-authority-school-finance-data#local-authority-and-school-finance.
Regarding the amount spent specifically on transport for children with Education Health and Care Plans, on chaperones to support children with special education needs, or on specialist providers of transport for children with special educational needs, the information requested is not held centrally. The Department also does not collect information about other public funds that may be spent on home to school transport, for example, through the 16 -19 bursary fund.