More than £430million was spent by just ten councils to transport children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to schools last year, new figures show.
One local authority in England saw its spending on SEND transport soar by almost 700 per cent in a year, with another now forced to shell out up to £600 per head taking children to school.
Ten councils spent £435million transporting children to school in 2024-2025, mainly due to the spiralling number of young people with special educational needs, including behavioural disorders such as ADHD.
Kent County Council spent the most with a bill of £69,395,048, followed by Hampshire spending £54,287,089, and Surrey £52,889,825, new figures from the TaxPayers' Alliance show.
Councils must provide free transport for SEND pupils, those from low-income families, or children who can't walk to their 'nearest suitable school' due to distance.
About 520,000 children in England now get transport to school and local authorities say they are 'struggling' to balance this legal duty with council budgets.
Dorset Council spent £592.62 per head transporting SEND children to school, Rutland £461.16 and Norfolk £382.34, the figures show.
Council spending on SEND transport has exploded in the past year, with Calderdale Council seeing its gross expenditure balloon by 688.9 per cent, Isle of Wight by 404.5 per cent and Sheffield by 387.5 per cent.
Simon Cook, data analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Whitehall has been asleep at the wheel as council costs for SEN transport soar into the stratosphere, as revealed in our local authority dashboard.
'It's local taxpayers who are picking up the bill for the grim failure by central government to control eligibility, meaning dirtier high streets, unfilled potholes and higher council tax as town halls try and keep pace with demand.
'If the Labour government want to deliver change people can feel, that means lifting the burden on councils to deliver services such as SEN transport as well as social care.'
The findings comes from the TPA's new local authority dashboard, which presents data on a range of services and spending areas for councils across England, including council tax.
The revelations on SEND transport come after the TPA revealed that council spending on SEND and social care had soared by 17 percentage points from 30 to 47 per cent in just a decade.
