Tory Council Leader admits letting people down in home to school transport chaos

The Tory Leader of Surrey County Council this week used his statement at the head of the full council meeting on 11 October to admit that "we have let some people down." His comments referred to the chaos in the Home to School transport service that organises travel for mainstream and special needs pupils, which had prompted a series of questions from Members to find out what had gone wrong.

According to statistics revealed at last week's Children's select committee meeting 435 mainstream pupils and 337 pupils with special needs were all still waiting at the end of September, for a decision on their application for travel assistance.

According to the Cabinet Member responsible for the service the Council has a number of challenges in this area including rising fuel and other costs as well as the issue of providers handing back routes. However, her written apology contained in the meeting papers indicate that she had recognised the shortcomings in how the application process had been handled. She confirmed that staff numbers had been increased to cope with the backlog and that some families had been given temporary financial allowances to make alternative arrangements themselves.

After the full council meeting Will Forster, Leader of Surrey Lib Dems said "I very much welcome seeing Surrey County Council holding its hands up to the fact that it has failed to deliver for its residents on this occasion. The Council urgently needs to improve its processes for handling Home to School travel applications to ensure pupils' education is not put at risk. But with a projected annual overspend of £15m on a £40m budget after just four months into the financial year, it also needs to find ways of curtailing its spiralling expenditure on this service in order to balance the books."