Hampshire County Council left a young child with special educational needs with the choice of travelling on their own in a taxi to school or facing a three-hour round-trip in shared transport.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigated after a father complained his child, who was due to start Reception at his special needs school in 2021, was not given the free school transport he was entitled to during the summer term.

The family was offered the option of shared transport, but this would have meant the little boy spending one hour 40 minutes each way to school and home because of the other children who needed to be picked up and dropped off.

The child’s father said this was not appropriate, so the council instead offered a taxi, but could not provide an escort, despite the child being assessed as needing one because of their age, and speech and language difficulties.

The father was left with no other option than to drive his child to and from school between April and July, until the council sourced an escort.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: ‘The council should not have taken so long to put in place the escorted travel it was obvious from the outset this young child needed. While I appreciate the difficulties the council has in recruiting escorts, it should have worked on finding one, rather than expecting the family to pick up the slack.

‘I welcome the council’s ready agreement to my recommendations to improve the process for parents in future.’

Leader of Hampshire County Council, Cllr Rob Humby said: 'I can assure residents that we always work hard to try to get things right first time and take all complaints very seriously. Where we haven’t been able to resolve things directly with the member of the public, we work closely with the Ombudsman to remedy any issues and make improvements to our services along the way. In this matter I can confirm that we have apologised to the family and actioned the Ombudsman’s further directions.'