Cost of ferrying pupils to school by taxi revealed

Millions of pounds a year spent on private travel for children

Councils in Tayside and Fife are spending more than £15 million a year ferrying children to school by taxi or private travel.

Figures obtained by The Courier laid bare the amount of cash being used to lay on transport to get youngsters to primary and secondary schools in Fife, Dundee, Angus and Perth and Kinross.

Education authorities must provide transport, or help with the cost of transport, if they consider it necessary to help children get to school.

They usually provide free transport to pupils who cannot walk to school for medical reasons or because they have a disability.

Former Dundee Craigie High School rector David May said: “I know some individual pupils and their families that, without transport provided by the local authority, would have huge problems getting to school at all.

“For some of them even attending school is a challenge.”

The cost of transport for pupils in Angus was £3.1m in 2014/15 and £3m in 2015/16 and the council provides free transport for 2,317 pupils.

In Dundee the cost for 1,071 pupils was £2.1m in 2014/15 and £2.1m in 2015/16; in Perth and Kinross the cost for approximately 4,000 pupils was £6.3m in 2014/15 and £6.5m in 2015/16.

In Fife, £3.9m was spent to ferry pupils by taxi and minibus in 2014/15 which went up to £4m in 2015/16 with around 11,500 pupils in receipt of free transport including taxis/minibuses and buses.

Mr May, from Montrose, added: “There is a need for youngsters with additional support needs to be transported to school.

“If they stay in a rural council there will be an even greater need because of the distance they need to travel.

“It’s very difficult to comment because most of the cases will be very individual and no doubt the authorities look at each case in turn.

In making their arrangements, the Scottish Government said authorities also take into consideration the distance between a pupil’s normal place of residence and school.

In general, they make free travel available to pupils who live outwith the statutory walking distance, defined as being two miles for any pupil under eight years of age and three miles for any other pupil.