Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusal to provide school transport for the complainant’s son. We are unlikely to find fault in the Council’s decision-making process.

The complaint

1. The complainant, I shall call Mr X, says the Council failed to follow procedure when it refused to provide school transport for his son, whom I shall call Y. He says the Council failed to advise him of how to apply for concessionary or discretionary options.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Councils must make arrangements to provide suitable free school transport to “eligible” children of statutory school age including those who:
• attend their nearest suitable school and live further than the statutory walking distance. This is two miles for children aged less than eight years old and three miles for children eight and above.
• are from a low-income family, defined as receiving free school meals or in receipt of the maximum Working Tax Credit. These children are entitled to free school transport if their nearest suitable school is between two and six miles away if they are aged eight to eleven.
  (Education Act 1996 section 508B and Schedule 35B)
6. Councils also have discretion to make provision for non-eligible children where they consider it “necessary” to facilitate the child’s attendance at school. (Education Act 1996 section 508C)
7. The Government issued statutory guidance to local education authorities on home to school transport. The guidance makes clear it is for each local authority to decide whether and how to provide transport arrangements for children not eligible for free transport. And whether to pay all or part of the travel expenses. Schemes may include charging for spare places on school buses used by eligible children.
8. The Council’s school transport policy states that pupils living in the area where Mr X lives may be entitled to a specific Academy (I shall call School A) and the grammar stream at another school (I shall call School B).

What happened

9. Mr X applied for a place at several grammar schools. He did not apply for a place at School B as he wants Y to attend a full grammar school which was not an all-boys school.
10. The Council refused the application because the nearest grammar school to their home is School B.
11. Mr X followed the process to appeal against the Council’s decision. The stage one appeal was considered by the Council’s Appeal’s Officer who upheld the decision. Mr X escalated his appeal to the Council’s stage two Appeal Panel.
12. The minutes of the meeting and the information provided by the Council shows it considered all the information provided by Mr X. It also confirms Mr X attended and took part in the meeting.
13. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body and cannot decide whether the Council should provide transport for Y. Our role is to consider whether there was fault in the appeal process. If there is no evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision, we cannot question its decision.
14. The panel decided the Council had correctly applied its school transport policy to Mr X’s application. The Panel noted that Mr X did not apply for a place at the nearest school with a grammar stream. It also noted there were two other, closer grammar schools than the one he had chosen for Y. One Mr X did not consider suitable as it is an all-boys school, the other is not mentioned in his appeal correspondence.
15. Mr X says the Council did not advise him that he could apply for concessionary school transport. However, this information is readily available on the Council’s website on the same page as the application procedure for free school transport and link to the process is included in the Council’s School and College Transport Policy.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we consider it is unlikely we will find fault in the way the Council made its decision not to provide school transport for his son.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman