Department for Transport (DfT) officials were questioned on 17 July by the Public Accounts Committee following a recent report by the National Audit Office into the value derived from public spending on bus services.
The NAO report Local Bus Services in England, which was published on 27 June, noted that ÂŁ5.9 billion was spent by the DfT on the bus sector over the last five financial years.
Jo Shanmugalingam, the new Permanent Secretary at DfT; Stephen Fidler, Director – Buses and Inclusion at DfT; and Conrad Bailey, Director General – Public Transport and Local Group at DfT faced the committee at the House of Commons.
Ms Shanmugalingam addressed the issue of cuts to services in rural areas. She says she hopes the new Bus Services Bill and a move away from short-term funding to longer-term, simpler funding certainty for local transport authorities and operators will make a difference.
Mr Bailey added that DfT was arranging the sharing of best practice between local authorities and operators. “We have a very important role in the Department that we need to get better at and move towards, which is to enable and support the many local transport authorities and operators to share best practice,” he says.
The fall-off in concessionary bus usage was also noted by DfT. Mr Bailey says: “We do not fully understand why that is, but some of the reasons that we think are behind it are the points that Jo was making about the fact that we can see less use for shopping and personal business travel, particularly by the over-70s. I think that has dropped by 8%, so that is part of it.”
Mr Fidler pointed out DfT was working with Transport Focus to try to analyse some of the reasons. “From that, we picked up some anecdotal evidence that it is indeed in part about perceptions of personal safety and catching an illness on the bus for the more vulnerable sector.
“There is definitely something in the data we have about changes in travel patterns. For people who would have gone to the shops, perhaps the quality of a shop or a coffee shop in the high street is not there, and they are much more likely to walk, if they are able, than get the bus to do a shorter trip, or to use online shopping rather than go to the shops to do their daily trip.”
The report had highlighted that around 50% of operator income now comes from the public sector and Mr Bailey said that, looking at other countries, this level was “pretty typical”.
He adds: “Over time, we hope that we will see, with enhanced partnerships and franchising, that some of the measures that can be taken—for example, the measures on bus priority to ensure that buses run more effectively and efficiently—will help reduce the overall operating cost of buses. You will need fewer buses to run the same route on the same timetable. That is where you may begin to see some benefits.”
Mr Fidler admitted variability in how Bus Service Improvement Plans were taking to implement. “There are a lot of areas where delivery is not as strong, and you can see that in the patronage numbers,” he says. “You can also see that in the times it is taking to deliver those capital investment programmes.
“Completion ranges from about 20% of projects on the capital side complete in some authorities, to about 60% in others. That is the spectrum.”
On the long-awaited reform of Bus Services Operators Grant, Mr Fidler said DfT was looking to action it “over the next two to three years”, with precise timelines being discussed with ministers.
