At the meeting of the Enterprise, Education and Skills Cabinet Panel, County Councillors were told that the Conservative run County Council is looking to reduce the level of transport support for older students with Special Educational Needs by £500,000 per year.

This means that one SEN student in every three could lose all their education transport support.

The grants largely pay for students to travel to one of the four colleges of further education. Under the new criteria students will only be able to claim for journeys up to 10 miles from their home and will only be paid for journeys to the nearest college. Given that the colleges offer different courses and students have to travel to more distant colleges to attend the appropriate course, this may affect which courses are available and viable to SEN learners.

Opposition spokesperson for Education, Lib Dem Councillor Mark Watkin commented:  “The targets set in the report make stark reading. Unlike County’s policy for funding transport to the nearest school on the basis they all offer the national curriculum, each college offers specialist courses.

“Students may have to travel more than 10 miles to attend the appropriate course and that college may well not be their nearest. The County says it will enter into discussion with the colleges to try to persuade them to provide greater duplication of courses but I fear colleges will not want to play ball.

“I am worried that the law of unintended consequences will apply and that students will have to leave the courses they are on. It was because of our concerns about how this policy will be implemented, that it just hadn’t been thought through properly, that the Liberal Democrats voted against this proposal.”