Thursday September 25th 2025
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
In Midlothian, issues in the past have occured with council provided transport seemingly unable to efficiently transport children to school and a lack of communication prior to pick-up. This has been prevalent with children attending Saltersgate School for Special Education that require taxi transport.
A lack of communication between the council and transport services has caused a variety of issues that include old services turning up to homes despite the council ending the contract, families not being told how and who is taking their child to school until a few days or a day before the start of the term, and in some cases children being unable to attend school with families having to arrange taxi travel themselves.
We spoke to a local parent whose step-son attends Saltersgate, who was unable to arrange school transport in the first few days of the term due to the taxi not being able to accommodate a wheelchair. Due to a re-tendering of all taxi travel to Saltersgate, they were not informed about the switch in transport until five days prior to his son returning to school. Despite this, a previous arrangement with the council and prior taxi service was that his son meets with the driver and escort before the term started due to his disabilty causing anxiety, which was unable to be arranged.
The parent who wants to remain anonymous, explained:
“This year the council re-tendered all the travel for the kids and we ended up with a new taxi service. We found out about this because [my step-son] needs to meet his escort and his new driver before he’s able to go due to his anxiety and need for familiarity.
“I took it into my own hands and tried to contact them to find out what was going on, none of the travel team [at the council] were responding to our phone so I eventually just phoned the taxi company that had been given and they said they hadn’t heard from the council either and had been trying to get in contact with them for weeks.”
After continuing to call the taxi company for days following the initial phone call, he discovered that the taxi service had gone to Midlothian House themselves to find out what was going on.
It was discovered that the council had not informed the taxi service that his son needed a taxi suitable for a wheelchair, arranging transport with this provider despite not informing them of his son’s requirements.
The taxi service that experienced these issues and was arranged to be the supplier after the re-tender were FM Transport in Penicuik.
We reached out to FM Transport. They clarified that they had not heard anything from the council in the week prior to the start of the school term and explained that until being informed by the local parent, they were unaware that they were transporting a child who has a wheelchair requirement.
In desperation the local parent called the taxi firm from the previous term, who also want to remain anonymous, to see if they could provide any information on what was happening. They confirmed that they received the tender documents for the new term and there was no mention of a wheelchair requirement for his step-son.
FM Transport, who won the tender, declined the contract. Resulting in the previous taxi firm starting the arrangement. FM Transport explained to us that they were forced to end the arrangement and expressed their confusion surrounding the extreme lack of communication from the council.
The confusion caused and lack of communication meant that his son was unable to attend school for the first three days of term, returning on the Monday despite the term starting on the previous Wednesday.
The step-dad was frustrated that his step-son had missed the first few days of school. Fortunately, he only missed two days due to being home educated on Fridays.
This isn’t the first time this has happened with issues with taxi providers causing his son to miss school in his first year attending Saltersgate.
In his first year, the council and taxi service sent a non-wheelchair accessibility taxi meaning in the first few days he was being lifted out of his wheelchair and into the cab which made his transition to secondary education much more difficult than it needed to be.
“The first time was at the start of school when they sent just a regular black cab with no wheelchair ramp, and everybody was surprised to see a wheelchair.
“My wife doesn’t want to have to lift a wheelchair into a taxi every morning and that shouldn’t be her responsibility.”
Highlighting this issue from his son’s first year in education, he also explained issues surrounding other children in the taxis, recalling a time his son got into a small confrontation with another child that was being transported in the same taxi.
With the issue being resolved now and returning to the taxi service they were familiar with, the only negative outcome was a change of escort.
Local parent and head of the Saltersgate’s parent council, Judy Thomson, who initially took parents’ complaints to the council, explained that a last-minute notice from the council said that only those that received a letter would get transport, which caused panic amongst parents days before the beginning of term.
Judy explained: “It’s ridiculous but I told people to wait until Monday, and of course they did. But Monday came and still no letters.”
Judy highlighted how late and vague communication triggered both confusion and worry amongst parents.
“The thing that is wrong with that was the council’s communication. What they do a lot is put communication out about schools in the area and nearly everytime it doesn’t include Saltersgate, they never think about us and it doesn’t help.”
With communication issues recurring each year, Judy sent out a lengthy email to many councillors in the area that demanded both answers to the travel questions and accountability for the issues. This was responded to by Council Officers confirmed that no changes were being made to Saltersgate School’s transport, despite the council’s confusing communication.
We reached out to the Midlothian Council for a comment and they responded saying:
“Midlothian Council successfully manages school transport for more than 2,000 pupils every day and are pleased that the overwhelming majority of eligible pupils had transport in place from their very first day of term.
“This school year we introduced a new policy and framework to strengthen our school transport provision and ensure best value for public funds. As part of this, we expanded the supplier pool to encourage competition, set higher standards through a robust entry process, and required all providers to sign a code of conduct clearly outlining our expectations for our service users.
“As with any major change, there were a small number of isolated issues at the start of term, which we apologised for to those affected. We fully acknowledge the concern this caused for those families, but all matters were promptly resolved.
“The steps we have taken were necessary to improve standards and long-term planning, also delivering a more sustainable service.”
Time will tell if all issues have been resolved.
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