The Local Government Ombudsman has pushed a council into overturning its refusal to pay for college transport.
Staffordshire County Council had refused to pay to get an autistic teenager to her college 25 miles away.
The council had not given the girl any financial help to get to the college since she moved to post-16 education.
This was despite the college being named in her Education, Health and Care Plan.
Public transport
The council had argued it did not have a duty to provide transport assistance because the girl was in post-16 education. She could use public transport, if accompanied, the council said.
But the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found the council failed to consider the actual journey the girl would have to make.
The mother had told the council there was no direct bus link, so a single journey would take two hours. This would mean somebody accompanying her would have to spend all day travelling to and from the school.
‘Not the first case for Staffordshire’
Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “This is not the first case in which we have found problems with the way Staffordshire County Council has made decisions about providing school transport.
“Some of the faults we have found in those cases are similar to those here, including not taking individual circumstances into account, and not making decisions in line with its own policy when read in conjunction with statutory guidance.
“I am pleased the council has agreed to my recommendations and hope the learning it will share from this case will help ensure other teenagers are not affected by poor decision making in future.”
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s role is to remedy injustice and share learning from investigations. The aim is to help improve public, and adult social care, services.
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Published: 10 October 2021
