Issue - meetings

Report ED17040

Members considered a report providing an update on the 2016/17 SEN Transport Budget, including information on children travelling independently.

In introducing the report, the SEN Transport Project Manager noted that Members of the Education Budget Sub-Committee had requested the report on the SEN Transport Budget at its meeting on 1 November 2016.  At this time SEN Transport was forecast to be overspent by £1.23m.  This forecast overspend had been significantly overstated and had subsequently been revised with the current forecast outturn position for the 2016/17 financial year representing an overspend of £653,000.  The previous £1.23m overspend was derived from a basic extrapolation of recurring cost for the remainder of the year for the volume and cost of the SEN Transport delivery costs as at July 2016.  However, this methodology had not taken into account the academic year delivery of SEN Transport, in which volume is typically at its highest at the end of the academic year but will then reduce from the commencement of the new academic year in September and then rising throughout the year.  The SEN Project Manager confirmed that future forecasts would be based on closer working between officers in the SEN Transport Operations Team and the Education Finance Team to establish a suitable methodology for future forecasting which took into account the academic year effect.

The SEN Transport budget overspend was in relation to the direct support costs to pupils for transport.  This included: (i) the costs of providing SEN Transport to eligible pupil which was provided through the current Transport Framework contract commencing from the 2015/16 academic year; (ii) the costs of parental mileage payments; and (iii) recoupment income from other services and local authorities purchasing transport through the framework contract.

The report considered by the Sub-Committee provided an overview of the budget and outturn position for the budget lines specifically related to the transport contract, mileage, and recoupment against the contract.  Members heard that the latest forecast over spend against the 2016/17 transport support costs was a continuation of an existing level of overspend that had developed in the 2015/16 financial year.  2016/17 expenditure also included the full year effect of the impact of the higher volume and cost for SEN Transport that commenced in the 2015/16 academic year.  SEN Transport support costs provided in the report showed the service moving from an underspend position to an overspend from 2015/16 onwards.  Key factors for the overspend in 2015/16 and 2016/17 were: (i) increased volume, (ii) increased contract costs, and (iii) increased support costs.  Details of the impact of these three factors were set out in the report and the SEN Project Manager highlighted that the young people becoming eligible for SEN Transport had increasingly complex needs that required different transport solutions.  In addition, the pupils were also younger, with support starting from 4 years old.

The SEN Transport Project Manager outlined the actions taken and the options available to manage SEN Transport costs.  These included:

Route Management: this was key to mitigating  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55