Personal Travel Budgets

A PTB is a payment to help you make your child's home to school travel arrangements in a way that suits your personal circumstances.

It’s provided to parents or carers of children who are eligible for transport to school. It allows you to make flexible arrangements and check the quality of your child's transport.

You could also work with other parents or carers to achieve the best possible travel arrangements for your children.

PTBs have no impact on any other benefits. It's your responsibility to check that this is the case in your personal circumstances.

Payments are not taxed as they relate to the child, not the parents or guardians.

Benefits of Personal Travel Budgets

PTBs give parents and carers the opportunity to arrange a travel solution that works for the individual child/children. It can also allow for an arrangement that fits within the broader logistics of their family.

This can be helpful as it means you don't have to rely on the pick-up/drop-off timings that the Home to School Transport Service provides. This can be especially helpful if timings make it difficult for other family members to get to work or take siblings to nursery/school.

They may provide more control over travel arrangements. We recognise that although we do our best, we can’t always meet every need of every child. Sometimes a bespoke arrangement organised by the parent carer can be a better option for the child/young person.

A PTB may be a good way to support a part-time timetable that may have been agreed in exceptional circumstances.

Disadvantages of Personal Travel Budgets

You're responsible for making your own travel arrangements. This includes ensuring anyone accompanying your child has an enhanced DBS check. This is undertaken at least every 3 years.

It's also your responsibility to make alternative arrangements if anything falls through. It's not always easy to find your own personal assistant or childminder. Shared arrangements can often work well, but they can also add strain to friendships if the arrangements fall through for any reason.

To make the best use of resources, we apply the principle of the lowest cost option for any child receiving transport assistance.

We'll tailor each PTB to the needs of each family. The total amount will not be more than the cost of your child/children being on our transport services. It will also not exceed the average hired transport costs per child.

Covering the cost of driving

We calculate the PTB based on the distance between home and school. We also factor in the number of days that your child attends school. We define 'home' as where the child usually lives and the address that receives child benefit.

We base it on there being 190 school days in an academic year, 2 journeys a day, at a fixed rate of 52p per mile. We measure the distance using the shortest route, which is from home to school to home, for each journey.

It bears no relationship to the cost of a hired vehicle or the specific journey you may use when taking your child to school.

Covering the cost of a taxi

You may secure your own taxi, but this must be less expensive than a taxi that the council could provide.

Purchasing a travel pass

We'll pay you the amount of an annual train or bus ticket to accompany your child.

Paying for an assistant/ family member, friend or someone you trust to take your child to school

We'll pay an hourly rate at the real living wage.

Paying a child minder to look after other children to support you in taking your child to school

We'll pay an hourly rate, capped at £15 per hour.

If your child is absent from school, we'll reduce the payment to reflect that. If you choose to enter into a PTB, please note that it's your legal responsibility to ensure your child’s regular attendance at school. We hope a successful PTB arrangement will maintain or improve your child’s attendance.

We'll ask you to sign an agreement that states you understand your key responsibilities.

We'll make the arrangements to transfer the PTB to your bank account. You will then be free to arrange and manage your child's travel arrangements in a way that best suits you, your child, and your family.

Whilst the council is responsible for ensuring that public funds are spent on the intended services, we want to keep the flexibility and control with you, and we'll keep monitoring to a minimum.

To receive the PTB, you must keep records, including receipts and invoices, and surrender them for monitoring purposes when requested.

You can only spend your PTB on transport costs for getting your child to school and back home.

You can decide how it’s spent as long as the key responsibilities are fulfilled.

Some ideas for spending the PTB include:

• purchasing a travel pass for yourself or a trusted adult to go with your child on public transport
• paying for an assistant or child minder with a DBS check to walk your child to school or to travel with them on public transport
• covering the cost of driving or cycling with your child to school. (including car rental)
• covering the cost of a taxi, so long as this is cheaper than a taxi that the council could provide
• arranging shared travel arrangements with other parents or guardians, such as shared driving responsibilities, walking buses or joint taxi bookings
• arranging for a family member or friend to take your child to school (we recommend that they have a DBS check)
• paying for childcare for your other children so you can travel with your child to school

You must make sure that your child arrives at and leaves school in a way that means they:

• are safe at all times on the journey
• get to school on time
• have a journey without stress and strain that may affect their ability to learn
• meet their individual expected attendance for the school.

You're also responsible for making sure:

• anyone employed by you maintains an enhanced DBS check
• there is the necessary insurance cover in respect of the provision of the service(s) agreed
• the services provided are suitable and safe (for example, a valid MOT, road tax, a valid policy of motor insurance, and a valid driving licence for that type of vehicle)

It's for you to decide what travel arrangements are right for your child. If we feel the arrangements you have made do not meet the above requirements, we may withdraw your PTB. We'll always discuss this with you first.

We make payments into your designated bank account at the end of each term. We will only pay this directly to you; we cannot pay it to friends or relatives.

Any friends or relatives employed by you to provide travel assistance do not become employees of Brighton & Hove City Council. They are not entitled to taxable benefits or Brighton & Hove City Council entitlements.

We'll ask you to provide your bank details when you sign the agreement. If your circumstances change, for example, your family moves house or your child’s school placement changes, the PTB may need to be recalculated.

Any transport arrangements, until your child has been re-assessed, will be your responsibility. If it's later established that there had been no notification of the change, we'll recover any payments made in error.

We appreciate that the timing of payments may cause some inconvenience. In some circumstances, like cases of financial hardship, we can make payments differently. We would be happy to discuss payment options with you.

You can stop your PTB if circumstances change substantially. We'll need a minimum of 10 days’ notice to arrange alternative forms of travel assistance.

We want to make PTBs work for you. If you're having difficulties with your travel arrangements, we encourage you to discuss the problems with us before deciding to leave the scheme, as we may be able to help.

If you plan to use a child minder or personal assistant to take your child to school, they must have a DBS check. This must be from within the last 3 years. They will need to renew the check every 3 years.

If you make arrangements with family, friends or other parents, we recommend that they have a DBS check, even if they are parent carers themselves.

The resources below are helpful guides to support you in making these checks.

Watch this guide to DBS checks on YouTube.

Read this guide to the DBS checks leaflet (PDF).

The Home to School Transport Service will ask for the DBS certificate number before approving the PTB.