An independent review has slated “botched” changes to the home to school transport service for hundreds of Brighton and Hove’s most vulnerable children.
The expert review team called for urgent improvements so that the mistakes that were made at the start of the current school year were not repeated next September.
Some improvements had been made, the report said, and the worst and most urgent problems had been resolved.
But children were “lost”, vital safety checks were not completed and parents and others had lost confidence in the council.
The review team found distress had been caused to children and parents and significant dissatisfaction with Brighton and Hove City Council after it brought the home to school transport service in-house.
They said: “Parents are going to struggle to trust the system again for some time.”
The council switched from a traditional contract framework to a “dynamic purchasing system” (DPS) run by a cost-cutting consultancy called Edge Public Solutions.
But the report cited one person saying that the DPS was better suited to buying pens than transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) whose behaviour could be challenging.
It said that council communications had been inaccurate, oversight and governance were poor and the big budget overspend had doubled.
The report said: “The implementation of the new system was done very quickly.
“This meant there were limited opportunities to engage with parents, carers and schools before the new system was implemented.
“The concerns raised by parents, schools and operators were disregarded and key information about the changes were not effectively communicated to all stakeholders.
“Systems of communication between the council and key stakeholders needs to be improved going forward.
“Once the new service started there were clearly very significant problems from the outset with some children not receiving a service at all, transport arriving late, others experiencing frequent change of operator, some being mixed inappropriately with other children and young people or experiencing very long journeys.
“The independent review team were also very concerned that there were a number of safeguarding incidents.
“The service has improved in the months that followed but it is vital the council ensures that adequate safeguards continue to be in place and that children and young people receive a safe service suitable to their needs.”
The report quoted one witness to the independent review team – a team of experts from the Local Government Association (LGA) – as saying: “The crisis was predicted and predictable.”
The report made 10 recommendations. It called for clear, consistent and urgent communication to all stakeholders and for the council to rebuild trust with schools, parents and carers – and with its own councillors.
It urged key teams to work more closely together and reduce the burden on parents to keep providing the same information.
Better training, performance and monitoring were required – and project management and governance needed strengthening, as did oversight and accountability.
The report said: “The council needs to put children and young people back at the centre of the home to school transport service, making them the focus.
“Their voice and needs should be more prominent.”
