Taxi Driver Online

Some interesting stuff here, and obviously quite a substantial investigation by the Telegraph

But I'd guess that unless you're quite right-leaning and/or are not in the trade, then the average reader on here won't be particularly sympathetic to all this. Me, I'm just

And it meanders off into the VAT on school fees thing towards the end, which is about as relevant to my personal circumstances as the price of dinner at a Heston Blumenthal restaurant

There are a few graphics on the Telegraph's website for anyone who's interested, and they can't simply be displayed on here because they're not simple images...


The school taxi journeys as short as half a mile costing councils £62m a year

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/schoo ... ncils-62m/

More than a dozen cash-strapped authorities splash out on expensive journeys for nearly 20,000 pupils

Councils are spending £62m a year ferrying pupils to state schools in taxi journeys as short as half a mile, a Telegraph investigation has found.

One local authority paid £53,000 last year on taxis for one child – £2,000 more than boarding fees at St Paul’s School, one of Britain’s best performing private schools.

And more than a dozen authorities paid thousands of pounds to taxi children – who do not have special educational needs – to schools less than a mile from their homes. The most extreme example was one student who was provided with a chauffeur for their 600-metre daily journey.

MPs and campaigners said the figures were “beyond comprehension”, and warned the ballooning bill will only get worse as thousands of private school children are forced into the state sector as a result of Labour’s VAT raid.

Councils are required by law to offer free transport to school-age children if their nearest “suitable” school is more than three miles away (two miles if they are under the age of eight), or they are not able to walk there safely.

In urban areas, this usually takes the form of a travel card to use public transport for free or a school bus service. However, councils are increasingly reliant on expensive taxis to fulfil the service.

The data – compiled from Freedom of Information requests sent by The Telegraph to local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales – show councils spent £61.9m in the last complete financial year on taxis for 19,584 children.

But, only 118 of the 207 local authorities asked provided data – so the real figure is likely to be even bigger

The figures do not account for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send). When factoring in Send children, the bill is expected to be upwards of £1.5bn.

The Telegraph’s analysis shows Hampshire County Council spent the most on taxis for children without Send – splashing out £7.8m last year on taxis for 774 children.

It means the authority paid £10,169 on average per child to bring them to and from school across the county. A spokesman for the council said just 8pc of children without Send travelled via taxi to school – despite the fact it was “a significantly rural county”.

One in five children enjoyed a dedicated service whereby their taxi didn’t pick up any other children on their route to school.

North Yorkshire Council provided taxis for 1,134 children last year, however, spent slightly less at £5.5m with more children sharing taxis than in Hampshire. North Yorkshire council did not respond to requests for comment by The Telegraph.

In Buckinghamshire, the council spent £4.1m on taxis for state school children – the equivalent of the annual tax contribution of more than 2,000 residents living in Band D properties.

The authority also revealed it paid for a child to be driven 0.39 miles each day to school – a journey similar to driving across the length of London Bridge and back.

A Buckinghamshire council spokesman told The Telegraph it “works hard to control costs wherever possible”.

Hertfordshire County Council similarly paid for a taxi journey that was less than half a mile, as did Surrey County Council and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.

A Surrey County Council spokesman said every application for travel assistance is “rigorously evaluated, with careful consideration given to the eligibility of the applicant and to the mode of transport provided”.

A Hertfordshire County Council spokesman said it was reviewing its school transport contracts and expected the number of taxis required to “drop significantly in the new financial year”.

A further 11 councils paid for taxi rides that were under a mile, journeys that would take three minutes assuming the car was travelling at 20mph.

In 43 councils, the most expensive individual contract for one taxi route exceeded £18,043, equivalent to the average day fees at a private school. In Leeds, the city council spent £53,040 annually on a taxi for one child. The authority was contacted for comment.

Joanna Marchong, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Hard-pressed Britons will be shocked by the eye-watering sums councils are spending on school taxi services.

“Providing transport for those in real need is one thing, but shelling out tens of thousands for trips of less than a mile and for those that are not in need is an absurd use of public money.”

Shadow education minister, Neil O’Brien, warned taxpayers would be forced to spend even more on taxis as a result of Labour’s VAT raid which the Treasury estimates will force 35,000 children into the state sector.

It comes after The Telegraph revealed 22 councils are forecast to have no vacancies for pupils next September in at least one year group.

In Surrey, which spent £5.3m last year on taxis for 1,581 children across the county, there are expected to be no spaces in Year 9, 10 or 11.

Using the Government’s calculations, around 2,400 children in Surrey currently educated in the independent sector will need spaces in state schools as a result of the 20pc levy on school fees.

Mr O’Brien said: “Once again, we can see clearly that Labour’s education tax will have disastrous results.

“With more and more pupils being forced out of the independent sector, and into a state sector that simply does not have the capacity to absorb them, councils will be forced to fit ballooning bills to transport kids to suitable schools – and putting further pressure on local finances.

“This ill advised and ideologically driven policy will leave parents, teachers and pupils paying the price.”

Maxwell Marlow, director of public affairs at the Adam Smith Institute, added: “The vast expenditure on taxis to transport displaced young people to state schools is indicative of the poor planning and foresight behind the education tax imposed by the Government.

“It is taxpayers who will have to foot the bill for this transport to both state school children who have missed out on a place, and former private school pupils who were forced out of their schools.”

The effects of Labour’s tax raid is already being felt in Lincolnshire where the council is spending £8,199 a year to send a 13-year-old schoolgirl to her nearest available state school, 25 miles away, after her parents could no longer afford her school fees.

Her mother Sarah Lambert, 59, told The Telegraph: “It was only after a friend told me about free school transport that I decided to apply. I have never applied for anything from the state but I thought I am going to fight this. I was so angry. This wasn’t my fault. It was Bridget Phillipson’s fault.”

However, Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, said the blame for “overspending” on taxis lay at the feet of both Labour and the Tories.

He said: “The level of overspending, mismanagement and waste across our councils is beyond comprehension. I’m sure hard working taxpayers would be shocked if they found out the true scale of waste that goes on in their local council.”

The Treasury was approached for comment.

Remember that guy's report on the trade a couple of years ago?

I think he was a bit of an Adam Smith newbie at that time, but his report hasn't prevented him ascending the career ladder there. Now if there's an official report that you could spend literally thousands of words dissecting...

Personally, I'm not sure the VAT on school fees is that much of an issue, and like the fox hunting ban, it is more down to class war than anything else.

VAT on school fees isn't attacking the rich, it's attacking those people who work like buggery trying to do the best for their kids.

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IDFIMH

The Surrey commuter town where it’s impossible to get a morning rush hour taxi

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/morni ... xi-surrey/

Residents left stranded as firms prioritise ferrying pupils to state schools

Workers in Surrey have been left unable to book a taxi first thing in the morning because firms are too busy ferrying pupils to state schools.

Taxi companies in the county have said they routinely turn down customers who order a lift before 9am because their drivers are fulfilling lucrative taxpayer-funded council contracts.

The Telegraph revealed last week that Surrey County Council spent £5.3m last year on taxis for more than 1,500 children – who do not have special educational needs (Send) – to state schools. When factoring in Send children, the bill swells to £51.1m for 6,985 pupils.

Councils are required by law to offer free transport to school-age children if their nearest “suitable” school is more than three miles away (two miles if they are under the age of eight), or they are not able to walk there safely.

Abdul Mohammed, whose taxi firm Nivoshan was paid £486,380 by Surrey County Council between October and December last year, said his business would not exist were it not for the school contracts.

He said his firm transported between 200 and 300 children every day across the north of Surrey, taking them to schools as far as 14 miles away from their homes.

Mr Mohammed said: “In the mornings, we mostly do school runs between 7am and 9am. We do try to take other bookings, but mostly we are unable to fulfil them because the driver is already allocated to school runs.”

He said that the council contracts made up around 90pc of his revenue, and “without school runs, I would go home to nothing”.

Andrew Bird, managing director of AMK Chauffeur Drive, a large taxi firm that holds school transport contracts with Surrey County Council, as well as Portsmouth City Council and Sussex and Hampshire County Councils, said he has seen a significant increase in children relying on taxis to get to school.

He said: “We tend to bring around 100 children in Surrey to and from school each day. Our business was set up as a local disabled accessible company and we primarily transport children with Send.”

The firm operates a fleet of larger pre-booked vehicles, and home to school transport similarly makes up 90pc of its business.

Mr Bird said that depending on the contract in place with the council, drivers are also paid for their “empty mileage”, this being the journey for the driver to get to the passenger.

He said: “We are certainly transporting more children now than we ever have before.”

Amanda*, a mother of two, from Redhill, said she was forced to give up her job as a teaching assistant at a local primary school because of the difficulty of getting a taxi in the morning.

Due to her disability, she is not able to drive and was reliant on a taxi getting her to the school on time.

However, after joining in January 2023, she was forced to quit after six months because she could not find a reliable taxi service to get her to work.

She said: “I kept being late because taxis wouldn’t turn up on time. I complained to my taxi driver, but he said he could not always get to me on time because of the other children he was transporting.

“I tried three other local taxi firms, all of which said they would be able to take me, but not if I wanted to arrive before 9am. I had to be there before 9am to do the job.

“I’ve lived in Redhill all my life and it was never that hard to get a taxi, but in more recent times it’s changed.”

The owner of another taxi firm in Redhill, who wished to remain anonymous, said they had set up their company five years ago to take advantage of the council contracts.

They said: “The fleet is only there for that purpose. We do try to take bookings early in the morning for other customers, but generally our main business is with Surrey [County Council] doing school runs with them.”

They added that while some journeys were as short as one mile, it was not uncommon for drivers to travel 50 miles to bring children to school across the county.

A Surrey County Council spokesman said: “Due to pressure on school places in certain areas, some children are attending schools further from their homes as closer schools are unable to admit them.

“Additionally, some homes in rural areas are situated more than three miles from the nearest school. The authority will aim to offer public transport passes or travel budgets where feasible – however, in some cases, contracted transport is necessary.

“Every application for travel assistance is rigorously evaluated, with careful consideration given to the eligibility of the applicant and to the mode of transport provided, to ensure the assistance we offer is appropriate and represents the best value for money.”

I think this would apply nationwide lets face it many a taxi firm relies on school contract work to guarantee their percentage drivers the minimum wage

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector