Kent County Council cuts free transport for post-16 SEND education

KentOnline / KMTV

The local authority faces some 85 million pound shortfall and they're legally bound to balance books. Local Democracy Reporter Gabriel Morris has been speaking to one girl who relies on such transport.

Transcript

00:00 The local authority has a shortfall of around £86.5 million. Kent County Council has set

00:08 its budget. To avoid bankruptcy, millions need to be saved. But how?

00:13 Now the budget will see council tax being raised by just below 5%. There are also a

00:18 range of cuts proposed. The Conservative administration say that's needed to secure Kent's future.

00:25 The Labour group say, well, it's cruel.

00:28 One of those cuts is free post-16 home to school transport with those with special educational

00:34 needs. 16-year-old Charlotte lives in a rural area close to Herne Bay and is reliant on

00:41 a taxi service to take her to her education setting as she doesn't go to a mainstream

00:47 school.

00:48 How am I meant to get to my education? I mean, I'm already so far behind and that is my future

00:55 and I'm a real person and it is my life at the end of the day. I want to go to university.

01:01 I want to do something. I just want to like live my life and it's just like they're preventing

01:08 me.

01:09 Her mum says she fought hard to get her to free taxi service as getting a bus is out

01:14 of the question. Charlotte has anxiety and autism.

01:18 There's a lot of uncertainty. Charlotte's already had so much uncertainty. She was out

01:23 of school or in education for two years. So to get to this stage, to have this package,

01:28 which is brilliant, and then suddenly have another level of uncertainty thrown in about

01:32 how she's going to access it. It's just, you know, terrifying really.

01:37 Privately paying for the taxi could cost a family around £50 a day. Home to school transport

01:44 for those 16 and over is a discretionary service for the council and at a budget meeting they

01:50 said it was a difficult decision to stop subsidising it.

01:53 We are coming in line with what many other local authorities have already done and we

01:59 will continue to be looking at this and a whole number of other related areas. What

02:04 is the case is that we are, as I say, under regrettably unsustainable financial pressure

02:10 and we have to continue to look, not just this year but in the years that follow, at

02:16 all the services we provide, the terms on which we do so, to ensure that we can ensure

02:22 a sustainable future.

02:24 The Labour group says if they were in charge, they wouldn't go as far.

02:29 We'd look to see how we could do this differently but we wouldn't have the same cuts as the

02:34 administration because we don't think there should be a barrier to education. Everybody

02:38 should be able to, between the ages of 16 and 25, so that includes SEN, to be able to

02:44 have an education instead of having transport as a barrier.

02:48 The council has confirmed this new policy will be in place by the next academic year,

02:53 leaving Charlotte and her mum seven months to find a solution.

02:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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