Rising demand from the families of children with special educational needs (SEN) is putting greater strain on Buckinghamshire Council its deputy leader has warned.

Steven Broadbent said: “There is increased volume and some increased timing issues that mean the service works increasingly under pressure. There are big volumes involved.”

The cabinet member provided the update on the service and its rising costs during a meeting of the transport, environment and climate change select committee.

His report said the council’s home to school transport budget of £33.5 million for the 2024 to 2025 financial year faced a shortfall of £3.8 million.

Much of the deficit was put down to higher numbers of SEN students and those at pupil referral units, as well as greater numbers of pupils being taken to mainstream school.

The council has a statutory duty to help SEN pupils get to school as one of the groups of school age children eligible for assistance.

Council-funded help is also on offer for children who live beyond the statutory walking distance, those from low-income families, and where walking routes to school are unsafe.

Transport assistance that may be required can be set out in an education, health and care plan (EHCP), a legal document outlining the needs of a child or young person with SEN.

An increasing number of children and young people now have EHCPs in Buckinghamshire, rising by 24 per cent from 5,700 in 2022 to 7,087 in 2024.

Cllr Broadbent said the growth in the numbers of SEN pupils represented a ‘significant uptick’ the council must accommodate.

He said: “That continues to be the case because in the last 10 years, we have had a 114 per cent increase – a more than a doubling of children – who have an EHCP.

“That means a bespoke arrangement for those who have transport provision to meet the requirements of that EHCP.”

Cllr Broadbent said the council was ‘turning over every stone’ in looking at how to provide home to cost-effective school transport.

One example is assessing whether safe walking routes could be used as alternative to transport for cohorts of children in mainstream school who are only eligible for assistance due to their distance from school.

The councillor also said the council had ‘re-procured’ its 16-seat minibus routes using artificial intelligence (AI) technology for ‘route optimisation’, which has saved ‘six-figure sums’.

He added: “The problem is all that work, that saving, is swallowed up by the ‘front door’ with more and more demand on the services of pupils who are eligible, and it is a statutory duty of ours to meet those needs.”