Birmingham SEND pupils left at home by council's transport service

Birmingham's school transport services are "pretty horrendous", says a councillor, after some pupils did not get picked up on their first day back.

City council-run Travel Assist provides transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and those in care.

But Conservative councillor Alex Yip said he was in contact with frustrated parents struggling with the service.

The Labour-run council apologised, and said 99.5% of its routes were running.

However, several pupils were left at home when the service "ran out of guides" to escort them, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Parent Keely Jones, whose son has complex needs, said he rang in advance of the start of term to find out who their guide was, but was told it was someone new who their previous guide knew nothing about.

"I was just nervous because obviously when you've got a different guide, a different driver, and different kids on the bus, it's quite a lot for the children," he said.

Mr Yip, shadow cabinet member for social justice, community, safety and equalities, said he and parents had been told communication would be better, letters would be sent in "good time", with parents knowing routes, times and drivers' names.

"This clearly hasn't happened; I've had parents who've been waiting on the phone trying to get through to Travel Assist, left their phone on dial, gone and done the washing up, made a cup of tea, watched a couple of films and the phone is still ringing," he said.

"So it seems it's pretty horrendous."

A council spokesperson apologised after a "small number of pupils" were not collected earlier and said the council continued to work with transport providers to ensure contingency plans are in place.

"We transport over 4,000 children across 1,000 routes each day, working closely with all our providers to ensure the right resources are in place," they said.

"Unfortunately, a small number of guides were not available at very short notice which meant five routes were unable to run [on Thursday], though 99.5 percent of routes were running."

The service was reformed in 2021 following previous criticism and an independent review by Ernst and Young the previous year.

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