Parents to speak at Central Bedfordshire Council meeting after school transport chaos

Some of the children missing the start of the academic year have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), leading to extra stress for parents and carers.

Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC) has apologised to all the children and families inconvenienced by these problems, which are similar to 12 months ago.

A joint extraordinary meeting of two scrutiny committees will hear the views of parents in an attempt to resolve the issues.

But CBC officers were praised at a sustainable communities overview and scrutiny committee meeting for the hard work put in to sort out the current problems

The Central Bedfordshire Community Network Biggleswade West councillor Hayley Whitaker asked for the issue to be discussed, telling the committee: “The solutions need to be coproduced with our families, which I’ve requested as part of this.

“Late applications are dealt with on a first-come, first-served basis, which makes sense,” she explained. “But some families put in a late application because they’ve not been given a SEND school (place) until late in the day. That’s not their fault, it’s ours. We should amend the policy for that.

“An extraordinary (meeting) might be necessary to cover all of this because it’s a massive topic with many elements to it.I’m glad we’ve apologised.There are still problems.

“It was their first time in a new school by and large.You can’t have that ever again. For a number of children, including our most vulnerable, this (experience) was ruined because we couldn’t get them to school.”

Deputy executive member for children and families and Independent Barton-le-Clay and Silsoe councillor Liz Childs replied: “Although things have gone wrong, much of it has gone right as 5,264 students were successfully transported to school on day one.

“We’re sorry for those things that have gone wrong. Officers have worked incredibly hard to get this sorted out. We’re aware of the long delays with customer services.

“Late applications are definitely a big problem. I acknowledge the comments from the Central Bedfordshire SEND Action Group. It transpires 11 out of 14 of (highlighted) issues weren’t CBC at fault.

“Some people are putting in an application and wanting the transport for the next day, which just isn’t going to happen. There’s a meeting next week with the home to school transport team, which is fully committed.”

CBC’s deputy chief executive and director of place and communities Lorna Carver “reiterated apologies for where it hasn’t gone right first time”, saying: “We’ve received 127 late applications since September, which are being worked through.

“We want to improve and get things right for everyone first time. That’s our ambition. Responses are being sent as quickly as possible to families with the hope of putting things right where they haven’t gone well.”

Independent Arlesey and Fairfield councillor Jodie Chillery suggested “parents don’t care who’s at fault”, referring to the 11 of 14 cases mentioned in an email by the Central Bedfordshire SEND Action Group being outside CBC’s control.

Independent Leighton Linslade West councillor Steve Owen described the current CBC switchboard performance as “poor” because there “simply aren’t enough staff”.

He added: “Four-and-a-half minutes baseline for switchboard achievement is lamentable. There was no challenge from the corporate resources scrutiny committee. We’re stoking the problem which has come to bite our parents.”

Conservative Dunstable West councillor Nigel Young, who chairs the committee, said: “We’re going to hold a joint special meeting at the earliest opportunity.

“It will be corporate resources and sustainable communities. I’ll chair it and we’ll invite children’s services. We’ll give parents the opportunity to talk to the scrutiny committee.

“We’ll emerge with a recommendation that hopefully will prevent this happening in future years.”