Ministers will ask councils to provide more details on the travel they arrange for pupils to get to school in an attempt to help bring down soaring costs. The currently only collects data on how much councils spend on home-to-school travel. But schools minister Catherine McKinnell said 鈥渆ven fundamental information鈥 such as the number of pupils who received free transport was not collected. Nor was information on catchment areas relating to travel. Catherine McKinnell Councils predict home-to-school travel costs could soar to 拢2 billion this financial year, with transport for pupils with special educational needs costing up to 拢1.5 billion 鈥 nearly treble what it cost a decade ago. They are expecting to spend an additional 拢514 million on transport to mainstream schools, up 46 per cent since 2015-16. Local authorities are required to arrange free travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school but cannot walk there because of distance, special educational needs and disabilities, or because the route is not safe. McKinnell told MPs this week she was 鈥渄etermined鈥 the DfE improved its data 鈥渟o that local authorities can benchmark themselves against similar authorities and learn from one another, and so that central and local government have the robust evidence to inform decision-making on those issues鈥. But in a Westminster Hall debate several MPs told McKinnell about their constituents鈥 difficulties and inconsistencies in accessing transport in Northumberland. ‘Vaguely Kafkaesque’ Joe Morris, the MP for Hexham, said it was 鈥渘ot just illogical, but vaguely Kafkaesque鈥 that a father had to drive 170 miles a week to get his son to school as he did not get a free transport place, despite his daughter receiving one. Pupils living in rural communities were 鈥渞egularly late鈥 for school because of delays with transport, he added. Morris said another constituent鈥檚 daughter was collected at 7.45am for a 15-minute journey 鈥 but did not get to school until after 9am. David Smith, the MP for North Northumberland, said it was common in villages in his area for an 11-year-old to spend up to two hours a day on four different buses. He told of one child with autism who was no longer attending school for several reasons, the first being transport. Smith said parents were 鈥渞esigned to the notion that having a child with more complex needs will require spending large amounts of money and time travelling to school鈥 because of the lack of suitable nearby schools. DfE will write to councils McKinnell said the department is writing to councils 鈥渋n the coming days, setting out our plans to ask them to provide data on travel鈥. It will be voluntary initially, but she hoped councils 鈥渨ill see the benefit of the data collection and share the requested data that they hold鈥. She said there were several reasons for the increased costs, including the rising cost of fuel, driver shortages and more children with education, health and care plans travelling long distances to a school that could meet their needs. A County Councils Network spokesperson said the data would be useful for benchmarking, but costs had 鈥渄ramatically increased as they are directly linked to special educational needs and disabilities services鈥. 鈥淎s useful as data collection could be, the need for reform of the SEND system should be paramount.鈥