Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent conversations he has had with Ministerial colleagues in the (a) Department for Transport and (b) Treasury on the potential impact on educational attainment of students if school bus services are cancelled due to school funding not matching inflation.

Regular attendance at school is vital for children’s education, wellbeing, and long-term development. The department’s priority is to reduce overall school absence and maximise the number of children who regularly attend school.

The department’s home to school transport policy aims to ensure no child is unable to access education because of a lack of transport. Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide free home to school transport for all children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school and cannot walk there due to distance, route safety, or as a result of special educational needs, disability or mobility problems. There are additional rights to free transport for low-income families aimed at helping them exercise school choice.

Most central government funding for home to school transport is provided through the Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS) administered by the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities. The LGFS is making available £54.1 billion in the 2022/23 financial year, an increase of up to £3.7 billion on 2021/22. This is the largest cash-terms increase in grant funding provided through the settlement in the past 10 years. The funding is largely un-ringfenced, in recognition that councils are best placed to allocate funding based on their local communities’ needs, priorities and statutory duties.

The department also provides grant funding to local authorities as a contribution towards the cost of extended rights transport, £43.3 million in 2022/23, with the latest inflation rates at the time used to calculate funding.

The department recognises that inflation forecasts are higher than they were when the Autumn Budget Spending Review 2021 settlement was announced.  How that interacts with the finances of local government is not straightforward. However, as not all areas of expenditure will be sensitive to inflation and local authorities may have multi-year contracts, cushioning them from this year’s inflationary increases. The department recognises that local authorities are delivering children’s services in a challenging environment and are grateful for all they are doing to support children and families.

Officials regularly meet colleagues from other departments to discuss cost of living pressures, and the department continues to work with the sector to understand the impact of inflationary increases on delivery of services.