£19k a day to get kids to school

Dec 8 2008 by nick lavigueur, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

COUNCIL bosses don’t know how much they spend on ferrying youngsters to school in taxis, the Examiner can reveal.

During the last financial year Kirklees Council notched up a £3.3m bill getting kids to school on time – more than £19,000 per school day.

But the council said it could not reveal what proportion of the huge bill was for cab fares.

A Kirklees Council spokeswoman said there was ‘no operational need’ for the figures to be broken down by mode of transport.

But the Kirklees spokeswoman said they had never recorded taxi figures because it was difficult to monitor, as a child could get a taxi one day and a mini-bus the next.