Please provide the following data regarding Home to School Transport for children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) for the 2023/2024 financial year or the most recent financial year available (and current year to date):
– The Total Spend on Home to School Transport for pupils with EHCPs attending Independent or Non-Maintained Special Schools.
– The Average Annual Cost per pupil for transport to these Independent/Non-Maintained settings.
Regarding the first two questions, section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit, which for local government is set at £450 or 18 hours of officer time.
We would have to check approximately 7,000 records to see which setting the pupils were being transported to, whether or not they had EHCPs and so on. Some passengers may not have EHCPs and may be being transported for inclusion reasons, or they may have a concessionary seat for post 16 or post 19 students, for example.
A manual check of each case file would take 10 minutes, and there are 7,000 files that would need to be checked to locate and retrieve the information, so that it would take much more than the 18 hour time limit to locate and retrieve the information.
This response acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of your request.
The number of pupils with EHCPs currently being transported to educational settings outside of the Local Authority boundary (Out of Borough placements).
A total of 162 pupils are currently being transported to educational settings outside of Devon County Council’s local authority boundary. This figure includes 43 placed in Plymouth, and 85 in Torbay.
Please note that the information provided represents a snapshot in time, as transport changes daily.