There is a catastrophic shortage of Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) drivers UK-wide, with in some cases allegedly over 40% shortfalls reported in some areas.

Of particular interest to local and regional authorities will be the problems with regard to educational, home-to-school (H2S), and special educational needs and disability (SEND) transportation. The first problem to resolve is the inability to obtain enough SEND taxi and PHV drivers, which has safety and safeguarding risks. The second problem to resolve is the extremely high price being paid by authorities, which is a consequence of not having enough drivers to meet demand.

In a letter to the IoL in November Jason Salter Chair of ATCO (The Association of Coordinating Transport Officers for school contracts) said:
"The SEND home to school transport market equates to around £900m of upper tier local authority spending per annum. The demand on the service has increased by 100% in the past 8 years and is set to increase further. The majority of that spend is procured from each local authorities, local hackney and private hire trade, who, under contract, provide a valuable service to some of the most vulnerable members of our society.
Many local authorities are struggling to fulfil their current legal obligations to provide home to school transport and they are very concerned as to how they will meet the increased future demand.
It is recognised that thousands of licensed drivers have left the UK's hackney & private hire trade in the past few years and these numbers are unlikely to increase back to where they were previously.
We are calling on local licensing authorities to seriously consider the introduction of restricted drivers licences, or school only drivers licenses”.

To assist with the above, we wish to make the following FOI request. “I hereby request, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

1. Knowledge of whether your authority directly procures taxi & PHV services.
Yes we procure taxi & PHV for HTST through the use of a Dynamic Purchasing System

2. If yes please provide the appropriate contact details for us to communicate with them, which would include as a minimum, the name of the Department, and both telephone and email contact details. Ideally, the name of an officer or key point of contact would also be appreciated.
Rebecca Brooks, Community Transport Team, Highways & Transport, Rebecca.Brooks@wokingham.gov.uk, 0778 382 8221

3. If no, we would appreciate the same details of any over-arching authority e.g., the County Council or Local Education Authority (LEA) that is responsible in your area.
Not applicable