Education Transport Travel Allowance Advice
Essex County Council pays travel allowances to some parents or guardians, instead of arranging public or contracted transport for their children. These are offered only when it’s the most cost-effective option. Families use the money to provide or arrange education transport themselves.
Travel allowance daily amounts may be calculated on the following basis:
Equivalent to contracted transport cost
Equivalent to, or to pay for public transport fares
Fuel
Travel allowances are not calculated to cover the cost of private taxi fares. However, parents or guardians may choose to use payments as a contribution towards these.
Fuel amounts
Fuel amounts are calculated using shortest driving distances between home addresses and schools or colleges
Distances are multiplied by 2 return trips (4 trips) to calculate daily mileages
For travel allowances relating to AM or PM journeys only, or for residential schools, distances are multiplied by 1 return trip (2 trips) per day
£0.45 per mile is paid, or £0.17 in some situations
For families with multiple eligible children, travel allowances may be calculated and paid jointly.
Letters are posted to families to share travel allowance details.
Payments
To calculate payments, daily travel allowance amounts are multiplied by the quantity of school or college term dates during the payment period. For residential schools, daily amounts are multiplied by the frequency of weekly, fortnightly or half-termly trips during the period.
Two travel allowance payments are made each academic year:
Period 1; advance payment for Autumn Term and Spring Term
Period 2; advance payment for Summer Term
Towards the end of each payment period in March and July, claim forms are posted to families. Parents or guardians must arrange for schools and colleges to confirm on the claim form, the number of non-attendance days for their children. Parents, guardians or schools return completed forms to Essex County Council.
Absences represent the amount of unused credit held by families, which is deducted from following payments.
For Post-16 students where charges are paid on a termly basis, travel allowance payments and claim forms are also processed termly. Sometimes Post-16 charges are deducted from travel allowance payments.
Only when instructed to do so, parents or guardians should share their bank details with us via this online form, for payments to be made:
Timescales
Upon receipt of accurate bank details and correctly completed claim forms, payments are made just before the next payment period starts, or within 10 working days.
Before initial payments can be made, and upon receipt of accurate bank details, parents or guardians are setup on the Essex County Council system as payees. This process takes an additional 10 working days. This also applies for existing payees who tell us about a change of bank details.
Please do not contact Essex County Council requesting payment updates within these advised timescales. Emails sent to us on this basis are unlikely to receive replies.
Please note that travel allowance payments are not made urgently or at short notice.
Changes to arrangements
Parents or guardians must email the Education Awards Team if their children are moving school or home address; a reassessment of eligibility to transport will be required.
If transport is no longer required, parents or guardians must email the Integrated Passenger Transport Unit immediately.
When eligibility or transport ceases, travel allowance payments may need to be wholly or partially paid back.
