Greater Manchester councils spending over £500k a WEEK on taxis for schoolchildren

Hard-up town halls in Greater Manchester are spending more than half a million pounds every week on taxis to take children to and from school amid fears transport services for pupils are at "breaking point".

Across the region nearly at least 4,600 pupils have taxis to school paid for by their local authorities, who have a legal duty to help children who cannot walk or use public transport to get there, analysis by The Northern Agenda politics newsletter reveals.

The sky-high costs are in part caused by an increase in the number of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who need to go to a specialist school, often outside the local council's boundaries. Rising fuel prices, wages and inflation are also adding to the cost.

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Town hall leaders say free school transport is a "lifeline" for many pupils but that funding pressures, rising demand and costs "are pushing the home-to-school transport scheme to breaking point". And a leading charity says it fears councils are looking at ways to cut SEND school transport, which is "an integral part of a child’s education".

See how your local authority fares with this interactive graphic.

Families have told of children eligible for school transport being refused or offered an unsuitable means of getting to school, like a bus pass for a disabled child who needs close supervision.

In Greater Manchester nine of the region's ten councils responded to Freedom of Information Requests, with only Rochdale refusing to provide details of its spend.

The total weekly bill was £582,834 for 4,611 children, with 721 pupils getting taxis to school outside