Sheffield SEND

What is this consultation about?

From September 2025, we propose to introduce Personal Travel Budgets for eligible young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Post-16 education and training. 

A Personal Travel Budget would replace travel support from Council vehicles, including taxis and parents/carers would be responsible for getting their young person to school or college. 

We would consider alternative arrangements (e.g. minibus or taxi) in exceptional circumstances where the travel needs of the young person cannot be met by a Personal Travel Budget. 

Adult learners aged 19-25 who are eligible for travel support would also be able to access a personal travel budget.

The closing date for responses is Wednesday 12 February 2025 at 10.00 am.

What is a personal travel budget?

A Personal Travel Budget (PTB) gives you the funding to arrange your young person’s flexible travel to school or college, instead of using council-provided vehicles or claiming back the cost for driving your young person yourself.

A Personal Travel Budget does not require receipts and is paid to you in three instalments across the school year. 

Payments are dependent on maintaining acceptable attendance levels. A list of the payment amounts is available in the leaflet at the bottom of this page.

Benefits of a Personal Travel Budget

• Consistent payments: regular, predictable funding
• Flexibility: Choose the best travel arrangements for your family
• Control: Decide on the services and resources that meet young people’s needs
• Independence: Help young people develop travel skills
• Shared Options: Team up with other parents for group transport or walking bus
• Convenience: Arrange pickups and drop offs that fit your schedule, including after school activities or visits to family and friends
• Appointments: Easily manage school and college attendance around young people’s appointments

You can make whatever travel arrangements you like, as long as they are safe and reliable and young people arrive at school or college on time.

You can read more about a Personal Travel Budget and the kinds of things you could spend it on in the leaflet at the bottom of this page.

Supporting young people to travel on their own

In addition, young people might be eligible to access Independent Travel Training to support them to travel safely and confidently on their own. For more information about travel training please visit the independent travel training pages on the Local Offer website: Independent Travel Training | Sheffield 

Independent travel is known to have benefits for young people’s educational achievement, life skills and social growth. 

Further support

Thank you for taking the time to complete this consultation. We are really keen to hear your views. If you need a paper copy of the questions, please contact: ptb@sheffield.gov.uk

This survey is anonymous. We will use the information you provide to inform the development of our Post 16 travel support. Our reporting will not identify individuals. If we use any comments you provide as examples within our reporting, we will make sure they are anonymised and cannot be used to identify you and your child.

Background
Sheffield City Council believes that every child and young person should be supported to travel to their place of learning as independently as possible – safely, confidently, and ready to learn. This becomes increasingly important as young people prepare for adulthood.

To support this, the Council provides home-to-school transport for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), where necessary. Demand for this vital service continues to rise, driven by increasing numbers of children and young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and the growing need for specialist provision.

For young people aged 16 and over, SEN home to school transport support is discretionary – this means that the Council is not legally required to provide it but chooses to do so to support access to education and help families.

For Post-16 learners, this can cost an average of £35 – £50 per day, or £6,800 – £9,500 per year per student (in full time education). Families currently contribute up to £540 per year (£180/term), and the Council covers the remaining amount. This contribution has not increased since 2017.

Given the increasing demand and rising costs, we are now consulting on a proposed increase to the parental contribution.

What is being proposed?
We are proposing to increase the annual parental contribution for Post-16 SEN Home to School transport from £540 to £1,000 per year. Although the Council continues to fund the majority of a young person’s transport costs, to ensure that eligible Post-16 students with SEND can access their place of learning, rising demand means we must consider how to manage the increasing financial pressures on the service. Increasing the parental contribution would help towards keeping the service running in a financially sustainable way. Even with the proposed increase, the Council would still contribute most of the cost per year per student.

The current contribution of £180/term (pro-rata for 3 days or less per week) remains in place for the new term in September 2025. Any changes could be implemented from January 2026 or a later date.

This proposal follows feedback from the January 2025 consultation on SEN Home to School travel support. Personal Travel Budgets and Independent Travel Training continue to be available as other forms of travel support.

We would like to understand how this proposed change could affect your family. Your feedback will help shape how we might implement and communicate any change. 

This survey is anonymous. Our reporting will not identify individuals. If we use any comments you provide as examples within our reporting, we will make sure they are anonymised and cannot be used to identify you and your child.

Sheffield City Council are always looking at how to develop, update and improve the Local Offer.  These are web pages which provides information about services and support for children and young people aged 0-25 years with special educational needs and disabilities. The Local Offer web pages sit on a website called the Sheffield Directory.

Your feedback will help us to make the website better. We will publish an annual report on the Local Offer website, summarising the comments received and the actions that are being taken as a result.

Link to the website: LocalOffer | Sheffield (sheffielddirectory.org.uk)

Please complete this short questionnaire to tell us about your experience of using the Local Offer.  

Contact

Wayne Priestley (Communication & Engagement Officer)

Telephone: 0114 205 3849

E-mail: localoffer@sheffield.gov.uk

 

Your child has recently been assessed and granted an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) by the SEND Statutory Assess & Review Service (SENDSARS) within Sheffield City Council.  This short questionnaire has been designed to gather valuable, constructive feedback on your experience of the EHCP process within SENDSARS only. 

Your views and experience surrounding the EHCP process will enable us to improve SENDSARS for future users. 

Contact

SEND Statutory Assess & Review Service (SENDSARS)

0114 273 6394

SendAssess&Review@sheffield.gov.uk 

Sheffield City Council is planning to run a Personal Travel Budget trial scheme. 

We want to understand the level of interest from families who currently receive Special Educational Needs (SEN) home to school travel support. This includes council-provided transport (minibus and taxi) and parental reimbursement.

Please complete this form to tell us if you would be interested in a Personal Travel Budget. We will use the information from expressions of interest to help develop the trial scheme. 

More information about Personal Travel Budgets will be shared. 

In the meantime, if you have any questions about home to school travel support:

• Visit Apply for home to school transport for children with special educational needs | Sheffield City Council
• Email indetravel@sheffield.gov.uk
• Call 0114 205 3542

Please note – the form is just to express interest only. You should continue to make your usual travel arrangements for September and apply for Home to School travel support as needed. (The deadline for applications is 5 July).  You can still express interest in Personal Travel Budgets if you have applied for travel support.

Do you have a child or young person with a special educational need and/or a disability (SEND) who attends a nursery, school or college in Sheffield? 

Please complete this survey to help us understand how well this setting supports your child. We also want to know how welcoming settings are towards learners with SEND. Please complete one questionnaire for each setting you want to give feedback about.

The survey will be open year-round. Responses will be downloaded and analysed twice a year. Your feedback will be used to decide which settings will be offered training and support to improve their SEND provision, and to share best practice. We are unable to reply to individual survey responses. 

This questionnaire is NOT a tool for raising complaints about a setting. How to make a complaint about a school or nursery. How to make a complaint about a college

If you need advice or support in relation to your child’s SEND, please contact SSENDIAS (Sheffield Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice and Support). Alternatively, you may wish to contact the Sheffield Parent Carer Forum for signposting and peer support.

Contact

localoffer@sheffield.gov.uk

Thank you for opening this survey.

We would like to hear about your recent Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) annual review. The area that we want to hear about is called 'preparation for adulthood' and it covers these four areas:

1. Education, employment and training
2. Independent living
3. Friends, relationships and community
4. Health

These should be discussed at all ages and stages.

Contact: sendsurvey@sheffield.gov.uk 

The Transitions Guide has been written for parents and carers of young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).  

We are interested in what you think of it.  Please answer the following questions to help us improve our information.

Contact: sendsurvey@sheffield.gov.uk 

Autism in schools is a national project funded by NHS England. It aims to improve autistic pupils and their parent carers’ experiences of education. Your school has been involved with the project. 

The purpose of this survey is to get your feedback now that the project has been running for a while in your school. 

Feedback from the survey will be analysed and included in our evaluation report. You are not asked to give your name.

Autism in schools is a national project funded by NHS England. It aims to improve autistic pupils and their parent carers’ experiences of education. Your child's school has been involved with the project. 

The purpose of this survey is to get your feedback now that the project has been running for a while in the school. 

Feedback from the survey will be analysed and included in our evaluation report. You are not asked to give your name.

Thank you for completing this form to provide details about potential changes to a child or young person’s home to school travel support.

The information will be considered by the transport team, who will then contact the child/young person’s parent or carer – please provide their contact details below and tick to confirm whether or not their consent has been sought to be contacted by the transport team.

Please note that it may not be possible to action all proposed travel arrangements.