NORTH Yorkshire County Council is considering increasing home-to-school transport charges for post-16 students.

The authority said it spends more on home-to-school transport than any other county in England, due to the sparse nature of some communities and the long distances some students travel to school or college.

The current contribution fee of £490 by families towards post-16 home-to-school transport has not been raised for two years.

According to the authority, the majority of county councils are charging in the region of £600 to £700.

Currently North Yorkshire spends £24.1million on home-to-school transport, an overspend of nearly £2.5million. Up to £2.8 million is spent on post-16 transport provision with the council currently receiving about one sixth of that (£0.5million) in contribution fees.

North Yorkshire’s Children and Young People’s Service Executive will decide next week whether or not to raise the fee to bring it more in line with charges by other councils.

The options to be decided by the Executive next week will be:

• Increase the contribution to the national bus average of £5 per day - based on post-16 students attending three days a week for up to 38 weeks this would increase the rate to £570 per annum;

• Increase the fee to £600 per annum

• Increase the fee to the average county council fee of £650 per annum

• No increase to the contribution rate

The agreed option will be implemented from June 1, 2019, for the start of the 2019/2020 academic year.