Personal Transport Budget parental agreement terms and conditions

This agreement is between:

The parent/guardian ('the parent') acting on behalf of the child ('the child') and Kent County Council ('us/we').

A Personal Transport Budget (PTB) is a sum of money paid from us to you for your child’s travel between school or college and home so you can make your own arrangements instead of your child travelling on our free transport.

It is a yearly budget to facilitate your child’s access to school or college based upon the school year, which is paid to you:

• on behalf of your child on a voluntary basis
• where you have chosen to make arrangements to secure your child’s transport to and from school or college
• where we would otherwise have to make free transport arrangements for your child.

This agreement says what you ('the Parent') must do in agreeing to receive a PTB and what we must do in agreeing to make the payment. This agreement is a legally binding document.

This agreement will be extended year on year based on the same terms and conditions subject to any changes in the arrangements.

The commencement date

Your PTB will become payable on the date that we receive this form with all necessary information completed.

Under this agreement we will:

• calculate the PTB payable from the commencement date to 31 July in that school year and inform you of the remaining monthly payments
• calculate the PTB payable for the child for each period from 1 September to 31 July in the following year (the 'School Year') and inform you of the annual amount
• tell you whether your PTB is for one or more children. If you receive more than one PTB in any school year we will identify for which child each PTB is intended.
• base your PTB on the distance for the home-to-school journey as determined by us. Your PTB will be calculated in accordance with the rates and bands shown in Schedule 1 attached to this agreement
• pay the PTB in 11 monthly instalments on or around the 15th of each month. No payment will be made in July to allow us sufficient time to confirm that a reduction is not required in the final monthly instalment to account for low attendance. The final payment will be made on or around the 15th August to account for transport that parents have provided in July of that school year.
• resume responsibility for making home to school arrangements if your family’s circumstances change and you can no longer organise transport for the child, providing that:
  • you give the council 28 days' notice as required by this agreement that you no longer wish to receive a PTB
  • the child is still legally eligible for home-to-school travel assistance.
• review the needs of the child at frequent intervals including when your child’s school or college’s or our circumstances change (for example change of family address; change of school or college)
• monitor the child’s attendance at school or at college at frequent intervals (usually monthly)
• inform you if your PTB is going to be adjusted or stopped (for example during pupil illness, if attendance drops to an unacceptably low level or if you are in breach of this agreement)
• have the right to stop your PTB should you misuse the money or otherwise be in breach of this agreement.

As the parent you confirm that you wish to receive a PTB on behalf of the child which will be paid by BACS payment to your nominated bank account. You agree that:

• for the duration of the time in which you receive the PTB you will be entirely and solely responsible for making arrangements necessary to enable the child’s access to school or college arriving at the required times in a fit state to learn and for meeting the cost of those arrangements. Your PTB must not be used for any other purpose. Using your PTB for any other purpose other than enabling your child to access school or college may be considered an ‘Abuse of Position’ contrary to section 4, Fraud Act 2006
• you will be responsible for ensuring that the child travels to school or college safely and securely
• you will be responsible for checking any payment schedules that are provided and informing us within 14 days of any errors
• you will accept that the PTB will be paid in line with the published banding structure and must be mindful of available funding when making transport arrangements
• you will be responsible for arranging the arrival of the child at school or college on time.
• you will be responsible for arranging the collection of the child at school or college on time at the end of their school/college day.
• you will be aware that if the child's attendance or punctuality drops to a level considered to be unacceptable by us or by the child’s school or college, then your PTB is at risk of being reduced or stopped.
• you will notify the Transport Eligibility Team (see contact details below), if your family’s circumstances change, for example if your child changes school or college, your child’s attendance, timetable or boarding status changes, the family moves address or you can no longer organise transport for your children. We will require 28 days’ notice. Where no notification has taken place and payments are made following changes in circumstances we will recover all over payments. Failing to update KCC of a change of circumstances may be considered contrary to s.3 of the Fraud Act 2006
• you will notify the Transport Eligibility Team if you use part or all of the PTB to purchase one of our subsidised transport schemes (for example Kent Travel Saver Pass, Kent 16+ Travel Saver pass or Vacant Seat Payment Scheme)
• you will notify the Transport Eligibility Team if your child is taking study leave from school or college
• you will abide by the terms of this agreement and you will not behave in any way likely to or intended to bring us or the PTB scheme into disrepute
• you understand and acknowledge the Termination Provisions set out below.

Changes to this agreement

This agreement may only be changed in writing and any proposed changes (save for a change of the amount of PTB by us) must be agreed in writing by us and by you.

Ending the PTB - by you, or by us

You may end this agreement for any reason by giving us 28 days’ notice. However, you may agree with us that this agreement will terminate at any point during the notice period.

Upon this agreement being ended by you, you will cease to be entitled to a PTB and you agree to repay to us the proportion of the PTB relating to the month in which this agreement expires which relates to the number of school days in that month falling after the day upon which this agreement ends. Should the PTB be withdrawn by us because you did not advise them of a change to your circumstances and the payments continued to be paid, all costs paid after the time of the change of circumstances will be recovered.

Your entitlement to a PTB will cease upon ending this agreement.

We may end this agreement for any reason by giving you 28 days’ notice.

We will not pay the PTB to you for any period after the expiry of this agreement.

We will be fully responsible if and to the extent required by law for ensuring the transport of the child to and from school or college after the date of the end of this agreement.

To give notice you will need to send a letter or email to the address given below. If you give notice by letter, the notice will run from the day when it is received by us. To be effective the letter or email of notice must clearly identify you and the name of the child to whom it relates.

We will give you notice by letter or by e-mail. Notice given by us will run from two days after the date upon which the letter is posted or from two days after the date upon which the e-mail is sent.

Ending this agreement by us for breach of the agreement by you

We may end this agreement by giving you 5 days’ notice if:

• the child fails to attend school or college and no explanation considered reasonable by the school or college is given to the school or college by you within a period of 5 days from the date of each absence
• the child regularly arrives at school or college late or is regularly collected late at the end of the day. For this purpose we would regard the child as regularly arriving or being collected late, if they are late more than once a week
• you spend the whole or part of the PTB on anything other than facilitating your child’s ability to access school or college
• you spend the whole or part of the PTB on one of our subsidised transport schemes
• you act in any way which in our opinion is likely to or is intended to bring our PTB scheme or your child’s PTB into disrepute
• you cease to be entitled to a PTB
• you otherwise seriously or persistently breach this agreement.

Upon termination of this agreement you will cease to be entitled to a PTB and you agree to repay to us any payments that have been made where you failed to advise us of a change of circumstances, for example change of school or college, address or where your child has left the school.

We will give you notice by letter or by e-mail. Notice given by us will run from two days after the date upon which the letter is posted or from two days after the date upon which the e-mail is sent.

We will be fully responsible if and to the extent required by law for ensuring the transport of the child to and from school or college after the date of the end of this agreement, if they continue to be eligible for transport assistance under our transport policy.

Important information

We and our partners are fully committed to increasing independence among young people and to enable them to lead fuller lives: being able to travel independently is an important life skill. To this end, we will periodically review PTBs and, if appropriate, assess the child's readiness for Independent Travel Training. If this situation arises, your PTB will continue to be paid until the child has been successfully travel trained and, importantly, assessed as being able to travel safely and independently to and from school or college. At this point, the child’s PTB will be withdrawn.

Payment rates

The applicable rates and bands for the purposes of calculating a PTB:

PTB payments are made on the basis of your child attending school or college for 190 days per year. If your child attends school for less than 190 school days per school year, or starts during the school year, we will make your PTB payment on a pro rata basis. PTB payments will also not be made for days where your child is not required to attend school or college (for example study leave or other authorised absence from school or college premises). Where a child’s attendance falls below 85% within a single month, the following month’s payment will be reduced to account for the reduction in required travel. This means you may receive less than the total amount outlined above.

PTB payments are made in 11 monthly instalments at on or around the 15th of each month. No payment will be made in July to allow us sufficient time to confirm that a reduction is not required in the final monthly instalment to account for low attendance. The final payment will be made on or around the 15th August to account for transport that parents have provided in July of that school year.

Distances are measured in a straight line from the home to the school or college. Our distance measuring software uses address point data as supplied by Ordnance Survey and is updated annually. The address point reference we have for your property is taken as a one end of a straight line, with the address point reference for the school or college used as the other end. This straight line measurement will determine which financial band your child’s PTB will fall into and is not negotiable.  Whilst it is recognised there is a wide range of distance measuring and mapping software available, our distance provided through its Ordnance Survey address point data is the only one recognised for determining the distance banding for PTBs.

Contact details

You can contact the Transport Eligibility Team for further information below:

• telephone: 03000 412121
• email: personaltransportbudgets@kent.gov.uk
• address: Transport Eligibility Team, Room M4.26, Sessions House, Maidstone, ME14 1XQ

Visit the Personal Transport Budgets page.