When we asked whether the Department’s data would enable it to capture best practice by local authorities and help them to benchmark and negotiate better value contracts, ADEPT told us that the Department was making a very good start and that better data of any kind would help.44 The Department explained that it had worked closely with local authority partners to design the data collection and that it had been able to estimate confidently the total population of children and young people using home to school transport – around 520,000.45 It told us that it was capturing data on modes of transport and eligibility-type data, and that it was continuing to develop its understanding which would allow benchmarking of local authorities with like-for-like characteristics.46 38 Q 12 39 Challenging Behaviour Foundation (HTS0005); Association of Colleges (HTS0016); The Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford (HTS0025) 40 Q 28 41 C&AG’s Report, para 2.2 42 Q 30; C&AG’s Report, para 2.2 43 Qq 30, 38; C&AG’s report, para 2.2, Appendix para 2.2 44 Qq 11,22 45 Q 30 46 Q 31 13