Guidance on travel to school needs to respect shared parenting arrangements

Shared Parenting Scotland has responded to the current Scottish Government review of its 2021 Travel to School Guidance, calling for an end to the ‘follow the child benefit’ policy used by some councils to exclude some children from help. The full submission is here. 

Scottish Government gives an estimate that a third or more of the school roll have parents who do not live together. Some parents will have court-ordered arrangements detailing the time that a child will be resident with them and in their sole care. Others have informal arrangements that are no less valid and no less a reality in the day-to-day life of the child. Children may have different travel to school arrangements according to the co-parenting schedule.

This reality is completely missing from the 2021 Guidance – because of the Guidance’s silence, local authorities have filled the vacuum with their own custom and practice.

For example, some, perhaps many, impose a condition that assistance with a child’s travel to school will be available only to the child of a parent in receipt of Child Benefit. It is difficult to see the point of such a condition from the perspective of the child who may qualify for assistance with travel to school on all other criteria in the Guidance but is denied by a condition that uses a DWP benefit designed for a specific purpose to ration a devolved service designed for another.  

Shared Parenting Scotland Chief Executive, Kevin Kane, says, “As Scotland embeds children’s rights in all areas of policy and practice, it is vital that the updated Travel to School Guidance reflects the realities of modern family life. Many children live across two homes, whether through formal court orders or informal arrangements. When local authorities use Child Benefit status to determine eligibility for school travel support, they risk breaching the rights of these children under the UNCRC.

The Scottish Government now has an opportunity to provide clear direction: school travel support must be based on the needs and circumstances of the child, not administrative convenience”.

 

 

 

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