Post 16 - Personal Transport Budget parental agreement terms and conditions

This agreement is between:

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

A Personal Transport Budget (PTB) is a sum of money paid from us to you for your young person’s travel between school or college and home so you can organise transport.

It is a yearly budget to facilitate your young person’s access to school or college based upon the school year, which is paid to you on behalf of the Young Person.

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.

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 young person 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 young people. If you receive more than one PTB in any school year we will identify for which young person each PTB is intended. Only 1 young person will receive 100%
• 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. If there has been low attendance in previous months, you may not receive a payment.
• you give the council 28 days' notice as required by this agreement that you no longer wish to receive a PTB
• review the needs of the young person at frequent intervals including when your young person’s school or college’s or our circumstances change (for example change of family address; change of school or college)
• monitor the young person’s attendance at school or at college at frequent intervals (usually monthly). The attendance must come from the school/college. We are unable to accept any other attendance data.
• 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 young person which will be paid by BACS payment to your nominated bank account. You agree that:

• the bank nominated must be in the name of the person signing the agreement
• 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 young person’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 young person 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  young person 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 young person at school or college on time.
• you will be responsible for arranging the collection of the young person at school or college on time at the end of their school/college day.
• you will be aware that if the young person's attendance or punctuality drops to a level considered to be unacceptable by us or by the young person’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 young person changes school or college, your young person’s attendance, timetable or boarding status changes, the family moves address. We will require 28 days’ notice. Where payments are made following changes in circumstances and where you are no longer eligible, 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). The PTB will be cancelled if you are in receipt of a subsidised pass.
• you will notify the Transport Eligibility Team if your young person 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 or us, you will cease to be entitled to a PTB and you agree to repay any overpayment made.

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.

If the PTB is paid for any time after the expiry of this agreement, you agree to repay any payments made.

You will be responsible for transport arrangements if you cease to be entitled to travel assistance.

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 young person 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 young person fails to attend school or college and no explanation considered reasonable is given to the school or college by you within a period of 5 days from the date of each absence
• the young person 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 young person 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  young person’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 young person’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 overpayments 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 young person 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.

Important information

Upon termination of the PTB, if an overpayment has been made an invoice will be raised to the person who is responsible and receiving the PTB payments. Should you be in receipt of the PTB at a later date, and the overpayment is still outstanding, this will be recouped from your payments. This is not an extensive list and we may recoup in other ways.

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 young person's readiness for Independent Travel Training. If this situation arises, your PTB will continue to be paid until the young person 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 young person’s PTB will be withdrawn.

Payment rates

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

* Transport legislation for Post 16 pupils is different to that for younger children. This means that there is no longer a legal right to wholly free school transport support. In line with our Post 16 Transport Policy Statement, it is therefore necessary for a contribution to be made. This will be deducted from the total PTB band.

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 young person’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.

PTB payments are made on the basis of your young person attending school or college for 190 days per year. If your young person  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 work experience or days where your young person is not required to attend school or college (for example study leave or other authorised absence from school or college premises).

Where a young person’s attendance falls below the required threshold, future payments will be reduced to account for the reduction in required travel. This means you may receive less than your scheduled amount. If you are no longer entitled to a PTB you will be invoices for payment.

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.

You may not receive a payment in August if there has been an overpayment due to low attendance in a previous months. If you continue to receive the PTB, your payments will be reduced to account for remaining overpayments. If the PTB is stopped, an invoice will be raised to recoup any remaining overpayment.

Contact details

Visit the Personal Transport Budgets page.