Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of local authorities in England offer independent travel training for young people with SEND.

The department’s statutory guidance for local authorities states that wherever possible, local authorities should offer independent travel training to children with special educational needs or disabilities who are eligible for free travel to school and who they think will be able to complete the programme. This guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-guidance.

The department does not hold the information requested. We are, however, working with local authorities to gather more data on home to school travel arrangements, including via a recent voluntary data collection.