Isle of Wight Council has launched a consultation on proposed changes to the School Transport Policy, which sets out how the local authority provides children and young people with assistance to get to schools and other educational settings on the Island.
The council currently arranges daily transport to school for over 1,650 children and young people. Of these, around 1,100 attend mainstream school places and more than 350 attend places that provide for their Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
The Council is required by law to provide school transport, free of charge, to all children and young people of compulsory school age that meet the nationally set distance criteria and a number of other rules.
The proposals in the consultation include:
- Personal Transport Budgets to be made available to families where a child or young person’s needs or circumstances mean that suitable transport is difficult to find or not available at all with local operators.
- The development and delivery of an Independent Travel Training service for children and young people with SEND as they prepare for adulthood, who may be capable of travelling independently to their place of education.
- The regular review of the provision of Passenger Assistants.
- Where parents are required to make a financial contribution towards discretionary school transport arrangements.
In addition, the council is consulting in relation to post 16 travel arrangements. Although there is no automatic entitlement to local authority funded school or college transport once a student is over the age of 16, Isle of Wight Council makes discretionary funding available in certain circumstances.
The consultations can be completed online via www.iow.gov.uk/consultations . The information packs (which include draft policies) and response forms can also be found on this page.
For paper copies of the documentation or any queries about the consultation, please email transport.info@iow.gov.uk with ‘School Transport Policy consultation 2024’ as the subject, or call 01983 823780.
The consultation closes at 11.59pm Wednesday 13 March 2024 and if approved, any changes to the policy will be applied to new applications for transport from September 2024.
