The Conservative Leader of Surrey County Council has admitted that “we have let some people down” following the chaos in the Home to School transport service that organises travel for mainstream and special needs pupils.

The County Council’s own figures showed that 435 mainstream pupils and 337 pupils with special needs were all still waiting for their applications for Home to School transport to be assessed and determined at the end of September when decisions should have been made before the start of the academic year.

The County Council has, without doubt, a number of challenges in providing this service, including rising fuel and other costs and the issue of existing service providers no longer providing the service, but the stress and costs put on families who struggle to get their children to school despite qualifying for this service when the service fails is unacceptable.

The County Council urgently needs to improve its processes for handling Home to School travel applications to ensure pupils’ education is not put at risk.