North Yorkshire Council is facing fresh calls to abandon its controversial new home-to-school policy after it emerged that the authority was not following its own rules on how to assess eligibility.
To determine whether a pupil will receive free transport to their closest school, the policy requires the council to measure from their home to the nearest school gate.
But the authority has confirmed that when measuring whether schools in neighbouring authorities are actually nearer, it has been using coordinates inside school grounds.
Officers have also admitted that routes across private land, where there is no public right of way, have been included when measuring distances, despite the policy requiring measurements to be along the “nearest available walked route”.
Critics say the new information, which emerged during recent appeals hearings, means the Conservative-controlled authority has applied a policy on parents — which has cost some families thousands of pounds — that it did not apply to itself.
The council moved to a system where free travel is only provided to a child’s nearest suitable school last year in a bid to cut its annual school transport bill of more than £50m.
It replaced a system based on eligibility determined by the school catchment area.
Liberal Democrat councillor Peter Lacey, leader of the opposition, said the council had publicly confirmed it had been using a different methodology from the one described in its own policy.
He said: “This is no longer simply a question about mapping or technology. It is a question of governance.
“If the council has been applying the policy differently from the way councillors approved and parents were told, then we need to understand how that happened.
“Who authorised it? When? On what advice? And why were councillors and parents not told? Those are questions the council now has a duty to answer.”
Campaign group, the School Transport Action Group (STAG), has written to senior officers and councillors calling for a return to a catchment-based system.
A spokesperson said: “This whole thing is now a total farce. Every week there’s a fresh scandal – another error or inconsistency that knocks away what little confidence people still have in this policy.
“The council has judged parents by the rules while admitting it wasn’t following its own. For two years, parents have been told measurements were accurate to within one thousandth of a mile.
“Decisions that have cost families money and changed the course of their children’s education have been made on the back of that assurance.”
In response to the criticism, Howard Emmett, the council’s assistant director of resources, said: “When we calculate home-to-school travel distances for schools in North Yorkshire, we can use data within our system regarding known entrance points for schools.
“However, the system records more limited information about the entrance points to schools outside of the county. In the interests of accuracy, we therefore calculate distances using the co-ordinates linked to the ‘unique property reference number’ assigned to the particular school.”
The officer said the authority did not believe that any child was disadvantaged by this process.
He added: “Regarding walking routes, the data that is provided by the Ordnance Survey and the system does not distinguish between roads and paths that are publicly or privately owned, or which are unavailable for use.
“However, where we are made aware of specific issues, this is taken into consideration when eligibility for transport is determined. It’s important to note that many private roads and footpaths are available for use as ‘permissive routes’, and in those cases, they would be considered as part of a home-to-school walking route.”
Mr Emmett said the way of measuring distance to assess eligibility for free home-to-school transport was historic and has been in place for many years.
“It was not changed as part of the updated policy in 2024,” he added.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has so far received around 20 complaints from parents over the policy, with five resulting in findings of fault and injustice to the families.
The council is currently working on a post-implementation review of the home-to-school transport policy, which is due to be published next month.
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