Value for Money

Home to school transport

Published 31 October 2025 5 recommendations Department for Education Education, training and skillsLocal governmentLocal services and housingSchools nao.org.uk
Our report looks at why home to school transport is one of the fastest growing areas of spending for local authorities in England.

Recommendations (5)

Source: NAO Recommendations Tracker · PAC follow-up below
Government Response Pending
The NAO has not yet recorded a response to these recommendations. NAO tracks whether departments are acting on its recommendations via its recommendations tracker. This report was published 31 October 2025.
Department for Education
Rec 1 Response Pending
DfE should ensure that forthcoming SEND reforms and their implementation consider implications for home to school transport to ensure that the whole SEND system is delivering the outcomes intended
Page 12, 22a
Department for Education
Rec 2 Response Pending
DfE should as it seeks to improve its data collection and make it mandatory review the design of its data collection to ensure that the information it receives enhances understanding of cost drivers and supports effective benchmarking, while remaining practical for local authorities to provide.
Page 12, 22b
Department for Education
Rec 3 Response Pending
DfE should as it seeks to improve its data collection and make it mandatory ensure the findings from its data collection are available to local authorities to encourage higher completion rates, better data quality and to support local authority benchmarking and best practice sharing.
Page 12, 22b
Department for Education
Rec 4 Response Pending
DfE should as it seeks to improve its data collection and make it mandatory work with the local government sector to explore what more it could do to understand the overall effectiveness of its home to school transport policy and the impact of changes in policy or discretionary transport, for example on attendance.
Page 12, 22b
Department for Education
Rec 5 Response Pending
DfE should monitor the impact of the home to school transport funding formula on different types of authority, and check whether the changes better align funding with local need
Page 12, 22c

Parliamentary Committee Follow-Up

The Public Accounts Committee examined this NAO report and published its own recommendations. The government responds to PAC recommendations via Treasury Minutes.

70th Report - Home-to-school transport
Public Accounts Committee · 6 March 2026 · 6 recommendations
View PAC report & government responses parliament.uk