The school travel service run by Southampton City Council was found to be using passenger assistants who had not undergone DBS checks.
The serious compliance issue was one of several weaknesses discovered by an internal audit, which gave the service a “limited” overall assurance rating.
A report, presented to the council’s audit committee, said at the time of testing eight out of 135 passenger assistants had not had a DBS check.
Those checks were completed by the conclusion of the audit.
It also found only five of 27 school travel providers had received initial compliance spot checks to confirm vehicle and driver documentation.
There was no signed agreement in place with a provider responsible for 50 school routes.
Not all school route forms contained the name of the driver allocated to the specific route.
Independent audit committee member Stephen Taylor said the missing DBS checks were “completely unacceptable”.
Chief internal auditor Elizabeth Goodwin said the issue had been identified during the audit and new enhanced arrangements had been introduced.
Southampton City Council says passenger assistants are responsible for supervising pupils and helping to keep them safe during journeys.
Online information for families states that passenger assistants have enhanced DBS checks.
Anna Bird, chief executive of disability charity Contact, said the findings would concern parents because school transport can be essential for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that many children travel long distances to school because appropriate provision is not available closer to home.
Ms Bird said: “A relationship built around trust is vitally important between families, children and staff working on school transport whether they are drivers or escorts.
“Some disabled children are non-verbal, some have medical needs including seizures.
“Parents need to feel confident that staff helping on school transport have the expertise and know how to spot signs if a child is unwell or distressed.
“I’m sure parents will feel concerned at this report, that standard checks are not being carried out for people who are in a position of enormous responsibility.”
She added that sudden changes could be distressing for children and that families, pupils and school transport staff needed time to build relationships of trust.
This could include children getting to know a new driver or passenger assistant before the start of term.
The audit also identified problems with invoices, bus-pass eligibility, demand data and appeals.
Invoice checks found discrepancies between amounts billed and prices on original route-order forms, with auditors unable to verify if revised rates had been approved and documented.
Data was not available in a reportable format to compare actual demand with projected demand.
Processed appeals had not always been updated on the appeals register.
Auditors found one in 10 pupils analysed had been given a bus pass following a direct request from their school, despite not meeting the council’s eligibility criteria.
Councillor Eamonn Keogh said it was important the council could be confident children were receiving the appropriate support.
Ms Goodwin said the failure was identified in the bus-pass model, which had undergone significant transformation work and delivered savings for the local authority.
She added: “This is an example of the organisation having gone through substantive work to try and bring that level of expense into a more acceptable level but as a result there were some gaps that were also identified.”
Ms Bird said school transport was consistently among the top 10 issues raised through Contact’s education helpline.
She said: “We have seen demand for advice and support through our helpline and online channels increase over the last few weeks as school transport provision has changed or reduced before the start of the new school term.”
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