Sheffield City Council’s Post-16 Travel Support policy has been updated and approved following the Education Committee’s vote in favour of the new proposal.
On Wednesday, May 7th, the Education, Children and Family Policy Committee met and approved the expansion of the Independent Travel Training programme under the Post-16 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Travel Support policy.
Officers Mark Sheikh and Paul Johnson presented the committee with the new proposal, including a business case involving the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.
The vote by the committee was the deciding factor in whether the business case with SYMCA would proceed.
Mr Johnson said: “There are a lot of valuable things in the proposal, which will hopefully mean that in the long term, fewer young people have to use public transport because we have approached independence in a different way.”
In December 2024, the committee requested a public consultation on replacing most Post-16 home-to-school transport with Personal Travel Budgets (PTBs), a move that led to the revised proposal.
The revised proposal seeks to expand the recruitment program for Independent Travel trainers and enhance travel training for Post-16 students with SEND.
Ms Gaynor Stevenson, mother of children who have participated in the Independent Travel Training programme, said: “My son Robert had never been on public transport on his own, now, we are about two-thirds of the way through the programme and two days a week he is independently travelling back and forth to Sixth Form”.
Councillor Toby Mallinson, whose children also have benefited from the programme, said: “We were offered Independent Travel Training, which was fantastic because it gave my son and us as parents the confidence to be able to travel on his own”.
The recruitment outlined in the revised proposal is set to take place between September and October, with a new batch of trainers expected to be in place by next year, joining the five already in service.
Councillor Mohammed Mahroof emphasised that for the programme to succeed, it has to be ‘the right way’ and ‘in the right climate’ for it to happen.
While the council voted in favour of the revised proposal, amendments were made, including the continuation of the consultation with parents and regular feedback to the Education committee.
