The consultancy brought in to save money on the home to school transport service in Brighton and Hove has quit as the overspend totals almost £1 million.
Edge Public Solutions was brought in on a two-year contract worth up to £500,000 and introduced changes that were blamed for chaos at the start of the autumn term last September.
Dozens of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) were left without any transport or with inappropriate or unsafe transport, according to complaints.
The main problems lasted – in some cases – until the autumn half-term holiday, with parents, carers and school staff all saying that some issues persist.
An external review is under way and Brighton and Hove City Council has set up a policy panel to tackle the continuing problems.
Edge, which started work about a year ago on the first of two related contracts, attracted criticism after being paid a six-figure sum before achieving any savings. Instead, changes introduced by Edge attracted dozens of complaints.
Questions have also been asked about the way in which the consultancy contracts were drawn up, tendered and let, including whether council officials followed the rules properly.
There are also concerns about the terms of the ending of the relationship between Edge and the council – and how much this has cost local taxpayers.
One school insider said that many of the problems had been resolved thanks to the goodwill of local taxi drivers and the patience of parents and carers.
But some children now have journeys to and from school lasting as long as 90 minutes each way, councillors were told in January.
The home to school transport service was operated by a number of taxi and transport providers with a budget of £2.4 million a year until last summer.
The service is demand-led – with the cost affected by the number of pupils qualifying for transport.
The budget was overspent in the final year of the four-year contract framework by more than £200,000.
Edge recommended that the new four-year contracts should be operated using a “dynamic purchasing system”, using competition to drive down costs.
Councillors had already rejected this on the ground that there were not enough local firms with the capacity to offer the service.
At the same time the budget for the service was increased to £3 million a year but spending has been running at almost £1 million more than that.
One of the reasons for contract chaos appears to be that the dynamic purchasing system encouraged firms to bid for more routes than they wanted or were able to operate.
As a result, at the start of the autumn term routes were handed back at short notice, leaving vulnerable children unable to get to school.
Most of the children affected attend Hill Park in Portslade and Downs View in Woodingdean.
The new system also appeared to be poorly co-ordinated, not least as pupils’ escorts were told that they could no longer take children into classes and collect them at the end of the day.
Instead, school staff were pressed into service in circumstances that one insider said had given rise to costly safeguarding concerns, welfare worries and dangerous traffic problems.
Two Conservative councillors – Mary Mears and Lee Wares – pressed for an internal audit but criticised the outcome because crucial information appeared to have been withheld.
The council said last month that it had temporarily suspended three routes affecting eight children after Haywards Heath Taxis was reported to be in breach of the contract terms and licensing law.
Among the concerns was that the operator’s insurance would be invalidated as a result of the breaches.
The council said: “The matter has been referred to Mid Sussex District Council’s licencing authority.
“There are potential offences involved with this breach of licence which require further investigation by the relevant licencing authority who will decide what action to take.”
In a joint statement about the consultancy contract, Edge and the council said: “Brighton and Hove City Council contracted Edge Public Solutions to undertake a review of its SEND passenger transport operation in January 2019 and subsequently contracted Edge to work with the council to help deliver a number of strategic changes to its home to school transport arrangements. Edge Public Solutions have a good track record in this area of work.
“Over the past 12 months Edge have worked in partnership with the council to retender the taxi market and set up an internal transport team giving the council greater control in this area moving forward.
“Brighton and Hove City Council are now moving on to the next stage of its change programme with its new team in place.”
Firstly thanks to Frank and his team for keeping this in the spotlight. It is imperative now we find out the truth as too how this was pushed through in the first place and if we will be getting a refund from Edge solutions. Going forward the LA must ensure that the service is not affected with it being run in house.