Transport Committee
Oral evidence: National Bus Strategy: one year on, HC 161
Wednesday 18 May 2022
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 18 May 2022.
Members present: Huw Merriman (Chair); Mr Ben Bradshaw; Simon Jupp; Robert Largan; Chris Loder; Karl McCartney; Grahame Morris; Gavin Newlands; Greg Smith.
Questions 99–158
Witnesses
II: Peter Hardy, Technical Director, Integrated Transport Planning; Linda McCord, Senior Stakeholder Manager, Transport Focus; and Councillor David Renard, Chair of the Environment, Economy, Housing and Transport Board, Local Government Association.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– Integrated Transport Planning
– Local Government Association
Examination of witnesses
Witnesses: Peter Hardy, Linda McCord and Councillor Renard.
Q99 Chair: We have heard from the local transport authorities. We now have wider stakeholders. Will all three of the witnesses introduce themselves for the record? Linda, can we start with you?
Linda McCord: I am Linda McCord from Transport Focus. I am a senior stakeholder manager. I also chair the West Midlands Bus Alliance.
Peter Hardy: I am Peter Hardy, technical director at ITP, Integrated Transport Planning Ltd. We are a transport consultancy and over the last year have been working with a number of authorities on their BSIPs and enhanced partnerships.
Q100 Chair: For the record, I think there are 34 successful bids. How many of those did your organisation work on?
Peter Hardy: We were associated, I think, with three successfuls and a number of unsuccessfuls.
Q101 Chair: Thank you for that. Councillor Renard is on the screen.
Cllr Renard: Good morning, Chair and Committee. Thank you very much for allowing me to give evidence remotely today. I am Councillor David Renard, the leader of Swindon Council, but I am here today in my capacity as chair of the LGA board that covers transport.
Q102 Chair: Good morning to all three of you. I am sorry for the late start. In order to try to catch up with time, we will not put all of our questions to all three of you. I will ask one question only.
This inquiry is about the bus strategy one year on. Linda, one year on, is the bus strategy meeting its objectives?
Linda McCord: First of all, I have to say that it is great that this funding is being made available, but it seems to be a bit slow. There may be some frustration in not seeing some of the benefits. Also, maybe at the beginning, there was a feeling that more local authority areas would get funding. That has not quite materialised as people would want.
From our perspective, the main thing is that we see improvements to our bus services and that there is a means for measuring that those benefits and improvements are being realised by passengers.
Chair: Thank you very much. There are plenty of questions to all three of you.
Q103 Robert Largan: I will start with bus service improvement plans. Peter, how ambitious are the plans that you see? How do they vary in different areas, rural and urban? Which ones look good and which could do with improvement?
Peter Hardy: From the outset, the Government wanted local authorities to be ambitious. They said that the national bus strategy was ambitious and therefore they wanted local authorities to be ambitious. However, that was not necessarily defined, although, obviously, from the strategy itself we saw that they wanted more buses, cheaper fares and more everything. Local authorities judge that from their own viewpoint. As you quite rightly say, from different viewpoints, for a rural area, a priority is very much about having a bus service, how frequent that bus service is and the like. Many authorities went out and spoke with their bus users and non-users to find out what their priorities were before they developed their BSIP. My view of the local authorities we work with is that all of them tried to be ambitious in their own context. The issue is whether that was ambitious from a national Government viewpoint. We do not know because we do not know what was being judged there.
We work with a number of rural authorities. The key for them was seeking revenue funding to help develop their network. For all that we might want to see innovation and bus priority in urban areas, in rural areas what people want is to know that at least they have an understandable network and a network that is certainly there through the daytime. People very much prioritised wanting to see that extended to evenings and weekends. They want to know that there is an attractive enough frequency for the service to be usable or attractive to them.
In my view, they were all ambitious in their own ways. With some, the ambition was through new ideas. Others were ambitious through what they were bidding for.
Q104 Robert Largan: Are there any that you think are particularly good or noteworthy that the Committee could take a closer look at?
Peter Hardy: It is difficult to say. I cannot speak on behalf of the authorities because I have no authority to talk on their behalf. They will have had the opportunity to do that, I am sure, through the LGA. They all put in a lot of effort. I think they did the right thing. They followed the advice. The DFT put out reasonable guidance. All authorities, as you know, achieved what they were required to do within the timeframes.
I think they all worked with their operators to try to understand what the genuine priorities were, and to listen to what operators wanted. For example, one rural authority was really struggling. A number of independent operators run most of the services in that authority. They were all struggling with drivers, recruitment and retention. There was no driving school facility to train drivers in that authority’s area. One of the BSIP requests was to establish a sort of driving academy to help feed drivers into each of those operators. That is an example where they were listening in partnership with the operators as to what they wanted to achieve.
Operators were pleased with what was submitted with their authorities. There is a lot of positivity around the development of partnership working. One of the roles in a number of authorities we were working with was to chair those meetings, to be an independent chair. All authorities held at least monthly meetings and continue to do that, regardless of whether they have the funding or not. There have been some positives in that way.
Q105 Robert Largan: You mentioned the timeline. Do you think there has been enough time to go through all this and do proper consultations?
Peter Hardy: To be fair, no. Although the timeframe was set out and all authorities managed it, it was challenging to do reasonable public consultation. Some authorities had the benefit of already having some information that they were able to use. However, it was achieved. What maybe was unreasonable was pushing on straightaway into the enhanced partnerships. The enhanced partnerships are to try to cement the commitments and take the ambitions on. The DFT was asking for enhanced partnerships to be developed immediately after the BSIPs had been submitted at the end of October, without any indication of what might be funded, and therefore what commitments might be required in them. There has been added pressure on local authorities and operators to try to achieve that in a vacuum of not knowing and uncertainty.
Q106 Robert Largan: Linda, the same question to you. How ambitious do you think the improvement plans have been? Is there anything that you found particularly striking about particular plans? Is there anything you would like to add to what Peter has just said?
Linda McCord: Yes, at Transport Focus we looked at a number of the bus service improvement plans and the enhanced partnerships. As I mentioned, I chair the West Midlands Bus Alliance. I also chair the board for Norfolk County Council.
There is good ambition but, of course, particularly at the time when the enhanced partnerships were being put together and finalised, the funding was not known. Some of the actions were quite vague until such time as they were confident that they would be able to materialise the ambition.
In respect of some good things that we have seen, the west midlands is looking to what we are going to refer to as the bonfire of the fares. At the moment, we have 3,000 different fares and getting those down to six different types of fares is something that the BSIP is very keen to do. Cornwall at the moment is going through a pilot for reduced fares. We did so in the west midlands and saw a 9% increase in patronage. Those are key ambitions. When it comes down it, punctuality, reliability and frequency, which were mentioned by the other speakers, are the key things that current passengers want, and indeed could encourage those who are not using our wonderful buses to do so.
Q107 Robert Largan: Councillor Renard, is there anything to add from your perspective?
Cllr Renard: Yes, absolutely. On the question of ambition I think that local authorities are, without doubt, very ambitious. Collectively, we have been very supportive of the national bus strategy. We are very keen to support it. You will have seen that from the number of bids; they totalled about £7 billion for the initial £3 billion funding that was originally put forward by Government. What we found disappointing is that, while we support the ambition of the national bus strategy, the Government reduced the £3 billion to £1.2 billion, resulting in the fact that around half of the authorities that had put in bids found that they were unsuccessful, and those that were successful got significantly less to meet their ambitions.
There is an issue around bidding for funds. Local authorities have to bid far more frequently for funding than National Highways, Network Rail and other public transport bodies do. There is a huge cost to those bids, anything between £35,000 and £94,000 for a £5 million project. A lot of money is being spent by local authorities to try to meet the ambitions of the national bus strategy, but actually many are now starting to question whether it is worth trying to support it given that the support that was initially trailed does not seem to be there.
Robert Largan: That is interesting and very helpful.
Chair: Chris Loder, over to you.
Q108 Chris Loder: Good morning, it is good to see you here. Peter, how would you briefly assess the Department’s process for prioritising BSIP funding, from what you know of it?
Peter Hardy: It is very difficult to know. The only indication from the outset was that authorities needed to be ambitious and that their BSIPs would be judged on ambition and quality. Beyond that there was very little to work against, apart, obviously, from knowing what the objectives set out in the national bus strategy said.
On feedback and the process, I think the process has developed and evolved over time. The understanding from authorities at the outset was that there would probably be some funding for them all. It was said that there would be two tranches of funding. The first would be formula based, so the expectation was that there was going to be at least something for each authority, based maybe on population, rurality or the like. Then there would be further funding, based on the level of ambition of particular projects or schemes to be funded and which, we guessed, might require some sort of outline business case to justify them.
As time changed, it became apparent that it was going to be more of a competitive bidding process and that not all authorities would be funded. Then there were discussions. Everyone knew that the DFT was having discussions with a number of authorities and that those were likely to receive some funding. Some authorities started to have the realisation that they would not. It was an evolving process, and no one was quite sure how it was going to end. The unsuccessful authorities still have not had any feedback, of course.
Q109 Chris Loder: In terms of the lack of feedback, are you aware of unsuccessful authorities being given a timeframe for when they can expect that?
Peter Hardy: I heard you mention earlier the end of May.
Q110 Chris Loder: That is what I mentioned.
Peter Hardy: I know of at least two authorities that have had the same message.
Q111 Chris Loder: Linda, can I ask you the same question please?
Linda McCord: I have very little to add. Peter has covered it. It has been very difficult for areas that have not received the first tranche of funding. I mentioned that I chair the board of the Norfolk enhanced partnership. Suffolk First sit on that board as well. Norfolk got funding—
Q112 Chris Loder: You had £49 million. Is that right?
Linda McCord: Yes. Suffolk did not. When we are having those conversations, I am very aware that the MD of First in Suffolk may be dealing with a very difficult situation from Norfolk, having received funding. However, hopefully this is just the beginning. I think the feedback to people who were not successful is extremely important. We have heard that there will be an officer allocated to each of those areas to help them put forward stronger bids for the future.
Q113 Chris Loder: Would you say, from what you have seen so far, that the process has been more in favour of urban areas than rural areas?
Linda McCord: I am not too sure that I would agree with that. Norfolk is quite a rural area. For instance, parts of the west midlands have rural areas. It is a bit difficult to assess particularly why some areas got it over others. As Peter mentioned, it was an evolving situation. At the beginning it felt like everybody was going to get funding. That did not come to pass. As I mentioned earlier, one of the key things in all of this is that areas that have got funding need to make darned sure that they are delivering what passengers want, and that we can measure and look at that so as to hold up good practice, and then perhaps open it up to other areas.
Peter Hardy: The process works against rural authorities because a lot of the requirements that they were putting forward were revenue-based rather than capital-based.
Q114 Chris Loder: I am pleased you mentioned that. You may have heard that I asked earlier about the split between capital and operating expenditure. Do you think an inherent flaw in the process is that more rural areas may require a different balance in their capex and opex than urban areas, and therefore have been disadvantaged by it?
Peter Hardy: I think they have, but again there was no guidance given. At the outset, it was suggested that the overall £3 billion funding for the national bus strategy work would be a mix of revenue and capital, maybe 50:50 was the indication given.
Q115 Chris Loder: It appears, though, that those that are more heavily weighted towards capital expenditure have been more successful.
Peter Hardy: I believe that to be the case.
Q116 Chris Loder: Councillor Renard, could I ask you the same questions? First of all, do you believe that the system has not really been in favour of rural areas but has been more so in urban areas?
Cllr Renard: I agree with the comments of my fellow panel members. It is a really difficult question to answer. The overall point is that this is a national bus strategy. As we heard from Tony Page earlier, its success is reliant on local authorities working with their near neighbours. When people go about their business, they are not considering whether they are crossing municipal borders or not. It is important that, if we want to get people back on to buses across the whole country, we ensure that there is funding available to all local authorities to make the step change that we all want to see.
Q117 Chris Loder: David, do you believe it would have been better if local authorities had grouped together to put a bid forward collectively? In my case, say, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire, rather than just Dorset, or Wiltshire, or Somerset on their own?
Cllr Renard: If those opportunities are made available by Government, local authorities are very keen to collaborate with their immediate neighbours, as you heard from Tony earlier. If that gives a greater chance of success with bids, I think you will find that local authorities are willing to do that.
The issue comes back, to some extent, to the bidding that I referred to earlier. Local authorities are having to spend a lot of money to bid with no guarantee of success. It is a costly exercise and perhaps not the best use of public money.
Q118 Chris Loder: Are you of the view, David, that the DFT has been geared up adequately to cope with this process?
Cllr Renard: Again, I think that is very difficult to judge. We are not aware why the original £3 billion announcement was then scaled back later to £1.2 billion. A number of the decisions are a bit opaque. A better understanding for all of us would be very helpful.
Q119 Chris Loder: Am I right in saying that it is your understanding that, where there was perceived to be a second tranche opportunity of funding, that is no longer the case?
Cllr Renard: We very much hope that it will be the case, but again we do not know.
Q120 Chris Loder: Therefore, your level of confidence that it is available is reasonably low at this time.
Cllr Renard: I think that is fair comment.
Q121 Chris Loder: Linda, could I ask you the same question about the second tranche? Is it also your understanding that there is no real certainty at this stage on second tranche funding being available?
Linda McCord: I was certainly not aware of definite funding but again would greatly hope that there is. While we are hugely grateful for the funding that has been put into our buses—there has not been this type of funding for many years, if ever—it certainly is not going to benefit the whole country in the first tranche, so we want to see a lot more. It should be benefiting bus users and encouraging non-bus users across the country, not just in some areas.
Q122 Chris Loder: Indeed. Peter?
Peter Hardy: I think that local authorities hope that there will be further funding, but I do not think they are holding their breath for it. For those that were unsuccessful, I think in their letters saying they were unsuccessful there was some wording that said, “This is a no, but not a not for good,” sort of thing, and, “There may be some further funding opportunities in the future.” Obviously, local authorities would like to think that is the case. All the authorities we are working with and supporting are continuing with their enhanced partnerships and developing their schemes, in the hope that there will be further opportunities.
Q123 Chris Loder: Are you of the view that the work so far has set a very clear expectation across the country that they are likely to benefit, regardless of the area, from this strategy, but when it comes down to it there have only been 31 out of 79 council bids that benefited in the end?
Peter Hardy: There was a huge buzz around the initial introduction of the national bus strategy. It really enthused people because, obviously, of the times we had been going through. Bus usage had been declining and we finally felt that here were the Government giving bus a big push. There was a lot in the news. There was a lot of talk about buses. It was great for the industry. I think the public saw that and recognised that.
Of course, the public might have quite short memories as to what has been going on over the last year. Obviously, it is at the forefront of what local authorities have been thinking about.
Q124 Chris Loder: A lot of councils, particularly those who are less experienced in this field, will have engaged consultants to help them with their bids. This is a process that has not really been undertaken before, certainly not in recent times. Do you have any views as to whether or not there may or may not be a competency issue in some of the consultancies? They may have sold themselves as extremely good and able to achieve brilliant rail bids or whatever other bids there may have been, but in this field they are less experienced and that may have had an impact on the success of the client they were working for.
Chair: I am sure that was not a reference to you, Peter.
Chris Loder: To be perfectly clear, it certainly was not.
Peter Hardy: I was going to say that it is an interesting question.
Q125 Chair: It might be hard for you to answer, on the basis that you might be dobbing in your competitors.
Peter Hardy: I feel it is not appropriate.
Chair: You can always put it to Councillor Renard.
Chris Loder: I will ask Councillor Renard that question in a minute.
Peter Hardy: I am happy to say something on that. I cannot answer for how all local authorities got consultants on board. Many authorities, particularly large authorities, already have frameworks with transport consultancies. They may well have been forced to engage with those.
Q126 Chris Loder: To come back to the question, do you have any views that you can share as to whether or not consultancy capability across the board will have affected some of the bids that may have gone in?
Peter Hardy: I would say no, because I think many authorities will not have just left it to a consultancy to work through the process. Certainly with all of ours, we were working alongside local authority officers to help with that capacity.
Q127 Chris Loder: Linda, can I ask you that question?
Linda McCord: You can, but I really do not have a view. It is not something that Transport Focus has been involved in.
Q128 Chris Loder: That’s fine; thank you. David, do you have a view on whether that may or may not be the case?
Cllr Renard: The LGA would not have a particular view on that. It is a matter for each local authority to take a view on whether they wish to bid for any funding pot and to make that bid, either themselves or with consultants of their choosing. No, I do not have a specific view on that.
Q129 Chris Loder: In the financial situation that a lot of rural areas are now faced with, particularly those that were not successful after the BSIP submissions, do you have any views, David, as to how local authorities might be able to fund better bus services in a different way?
Cllr Renard: It will be a real challenge. As we know, the vast majority of bus services around the country are run on a commercial basis unless they are specifically tendered for and subsidised by the local authority. Local authority funding for subsidising services has decreased quite significantly over the last 10 or so years.
Q130 Chris Loder: Are you of the view that, as a result of that, some private sector operators position themselves, for example, to suggest publicly that a bus route may not be viable in order to put the local authority in a place where they either have to subsidise the route or say it requires subsidising, or it is basically removed?
Cllr Renard: That may well have happened on various routes and in various authorities across the country. Yes, it puts local authorities in a very difficult position as to whether they can—
Q131 Chris Loder: Would you say that it is improper of commercial operators to take advantage in that way? What it is really doing is pushing the risk on to local authorities. On the one hand, you can take the commercial benefit from operating a route, but when it becomes a little more difficult they expect the local authority to take the hit, if indeed there really is one.
Cllr Renard: Clearly, it is not a strategy that I would support or welcome. If that is going on, clearly we would appreciate any support in urging the bus companies to change their approach, if that is what they are doing.
Q132 Chris Loder: Linda, do you have a view as to that sort of thing happening in the industry, or are you aware of it happening in places?
Linda McCord: I am not aware of it happening. I do not really have a particular view on that point. What I have a strong view on is that passengers and people do not care who is running their buses. What they want are good, punctual, reliable services. If there is any of that going on, it is not of benefit to the end user and we should be working together to prevent it.
Q133 Chris Loder: Does your organisation seek to expose that sort of thing, should it happen, or do you think that is not really your role?
Linda McCord: No. We are about getting the views of passengers and making sure that things are improved.
Q134 Chris Loder: I am conscious that I am probably going to get a glare shortly, if I am not getting it already. I asked the earlier panel about the impact of bus passes and how they reduced the commercial viability of some routes. In areas such as Dorset, which has a particularly high average demographic, that makes the commercial bus routes much less viable. David, do you see it as a real issue across the country, particularly in rural areas?
Cllr Renard: Absolutely. It is one of the key issues. The LGA has been lobbying Government on it for a number of years. Ever since the concessionary fares scheme was introduced, it has been consistently underfunded.
Q135 Chris Loder: Do you believe that the Government have actually listened to those petitions or not?
Cllr Renard: As we have not seen any change in policy, I would have to say not. We believe there is a gap of about £700 million between the amount that is paid to bus companies and the amount that local authorities receive from Government. It has been reported to this Committee previously—I believe in 2019—and it continues to be a real issue in being able to fund services, regardless of whether they are rural or urban.
Q136 Chris Loder: Linda, do you have a view as to how the concessionary passes affect commercial viability, particularly of rural buses?
Linda McCord: It is obviously going to have an impact. I was at a conference in Dublin fairly recently where the policy was to fund concessionary fares. Somebody asked, “Well, why aren’t you funding young people?” That answer was that it should be both. That is the case. There is a need to ensure that those with concessionary passes and of a certain age, or with a disability or whatever, should be able to get good bus services, and indeed a subsidy of that is required, but also for other people. It is a fundamental view, looking at ensuring that we are delivering for all passengers and not just certain groups.
Q137 Chris Loder: Peter, very briefly, do you have an observation to share?
Peter Hardy: In the past, there have been concerns from operators, but in the present circumstances, because concession usage is so low, operators would be pleased to see any additional use of—
Q138 Chris Loder: It may be in some areas, but in those where the average demographic is high, in many cases it is the deciding factor as to whether or not a commercial operation is viable. Would you agree?
Peter Hardy: It can be because, obviously, they only get a percentage of the revenue lost.
Q139 Chris Loder: I do not suppose you know what percentage it is.
Peter Hardy: It varies because it is set in the individual concessionary fare schemes agreed with the authorities and their operators. It might vary on the type of operations, but operators may receive only 50% of the fare forgone.
Q140 Chair: Finally on BSIPs, Councillor Renard, are you concerned that your members have the capabilities to be able to make successful bids? I touched on it with the previous panel. Do you think that we are likely to see councils move to a model whereby they have a specialist bidding team, separate from the actual individual technical department that might receive the funds?
Cllr Renard: The position of the LGA, Chair, is that we think the Government should be moving away from these bidding rounds and moving more to a system of allocation, subject to being able to demonstrate that local authorities can provide the outcomes required. From an LGA perspective, we would rather move away from a bidding system, but if that is the way Government are going to operate, we need to look at ways of making those bids more cost-effectively. As I said earlier, it is a huge cost to local authorities to put the bids in, and then find that they are unsuccessful. It is a huge waste of time, effort and money.
Q141 Chair: Don’t you think a bidding process incentivises innovation and keenness to deliver, rather than just receiving funds on the basis that everyone should?
Cllr Renard: I was not suggesting that everyone should just receive funds without—
Q142 Chair: I know you weren’t, but don’t you think that an element of competition sharpens the pencil?
Cllr Renard: I am all in favour of competition, absolutely; but equally we do not want huge sums of public resources being wasted when they could be directed to providing the sort of support that we are talking about in this case, which is getting more people on to more efficient bus services.
Chair: Fair answer. Let’s move on to enhanced partnerships and franchising opportunities with Grahame Morris.
Q143 Grahame Morris: I want to take up a point that Councillor Renard made earlier. In fact, two of your colleagues—Councillor Page and Councillor Bond—raised it in a previous session. You just mentioned that you were in favour of competition. In the context of the enhanced partnerships, which everyone seems fairly confident will deliver service improvements, what is your view on the Competition and Markets Authority raising concerns about the effect of enhanced partnerships on bus services?
Cllr Renard: The LGA view on enhanced partnerships is that they are very welcome, and we see that as one of the successes. That includes the establishment of a bus centre of excellence. The LGA view is that we very much welcome—
Q144 Grahame Morris: I appreciate that, and you indicated it in your written evidence too. Maybe my question was not very clear.
There were concerns raised in the earlier session. Maybe you were not following that. A couple of local authority representatives flagged up that the Competition and Markets Authority had expressed concerns that the enhanced partnerships would be considered non-competitive and might result in protracted and expensive legal test cases to prove that that was not the case. Is that something where you share its concern on behalf of the LGA? Are you making representations about that?
Cllr Renard: At the moment, the LGA does not have a particular view on that, but I am more than happy to get a written submission to the Chair on it.
Q145 Grahame Morris: I am sure that would be useful, but I think it might be very useful for your members as well if the LGA was supportive of the value of enhanced partnerships and you did not see that as anti-competitive in any way. Maybe there is some mechanism that the LGA can apply through supporting the legal challenge, if one is necessary. Thank you for that information.
Linda and Peter, I want to go back to enhanced partnerships and your views on them. At the very beginning, Linda, you said the key issues were punctuality, frequency and improvements in reliability. Various submissions that we have received as a Committee have identified value for money. You talked about extending concessionary fares to younger people and people with disabilities; safer buses; greener buses; internet access; and, my bugbear, reliable real-time information at bus stands.
Is there anything you want to highlight with us in relation to the targets for an enhanced bus partnership? What should we be looking for in giving advice to local authorities about developing their own enhanced partnerships?
Linda McCord: I am very happy to respond to that. Transport Focus, throughout all this process, produced a number of guidelines that we pushed out to all of the local transport authorities. One of those was around what the priorities are. We were very pleased that the national bus strategy referred to a Transport Focus Insight, which showed that the top priorities for passengers, and indeed people who do not use our buses, are frequency, punctuality and reliability. Through Covid, another priority has come through quite strongly, and that is cleanliness. People’s expectations have become higher.
We have been very much pushing that an enhanced partnership—indeed backed by the bus service improvement plan—has to be about what the people who are using it want, and indeed tries to encourage people who do not actually use them to start using our buses. We know that, if you get the message across that our buses are delivering those things, you have a chance of getting people to make the choice of using buses.
Q146 Grahame Morris: What about accessibility for people with disabilities and having buses that have a bay for wheelchairs or pushchairs, and the ability to kneel down so that it is not such a huge step up for people who have issues about climbing on? Is that one of the areas that you would highlight as well?
Linda McCord: Yes, it is hugely important.
Q147 Grahame Morris: Peter, I know that time is short but is there anything that you would like to tell the Committee in relation to enhanced partnerships that you have not covered already?
Peter Hardy: No, apart from saying that BSIPs set out the strategy, the targets and where people want to get to. The enhanced partnership is a process to facilitate the delivery of what is in the BSIP.
I said earlier that enhanced partnerships followed on too quickly. They were developed and put out in the 2017 Bus Services Act for a particular purpose, to deliver particular things, whereas now they are being used as the only avenue for authorities to cement what is in their BSIPs. The Department is very keen that every action that an authority is trying to seek through its BSIP is encompassed within an enhanced partnership. I think that may be a bit over-pressured for an enhanced partnership.
Enhanced partnerships are great when you are trying to ensure that there are solid commitments to deliver something because, obviously, they become legally binding. They are great for, say, bus priority. The local authority will deliver a bus priority scheme and, in exchange, the operators, once it is delivered, will deliver enhanced buses, better fares or whatever else. There is a definite relationship. When it comes to other, more general, things, it is quite difficult to get the same commitments written into an enhanced partnership. It may be overdoing things a bit.
Grahame Morris: I take Councillor Renard’s point about moving away from competitive bidding, particularly when it involves such a huge resource commitment and expense for the local authorities that are unsuccessful. In fact, if you check Hansard, that was the basis of my question to Michael Gove yesterday, when I suggested a partnership between central and local government with agreed outputs. If the output is the enhanced partnership proposals and they demonstrate an improvement in the service, maybe that is the way forward.
Thank you very much for your evidence.
Chair: We will all be searching for that Hansard reference.
Grahame Morris: I am sure you will, Chair.
Q148 Chair: I will finish on enhanced partnerships. This may be one for Councillor Renard. Is it the case that the Government just felt that some local transport authorities were not properly partnering with the private operators?
We have talked about the second highest ridership being Reading. I think the highest is Brighton and Hove. They have a really strong partnership. As far as the local government is concerned, they believe that it is theirs to own. I believe that there are some transport authorities that take a slightly more laidback view. Do you think that is the driver for the Government saying, “Let’s put these enhanced partnerships in place so that county hall sees itself as a co-owner of bus improvements”?
Cllr Renard: It is an interesting question, Chair. My experience in local government dealing with national Governments of various colours is that Governments tend to look at the lowest performing local authority areas and seek to raise those to the level of the better performing ones. It may well be that what you suggest is correct, but I think what we all have to try to do is make sure that we get people out of their cars and on to buses and make that as attractive as possible. How much of that is carrot and how much of it is stick is a matter for judgment. The LGA is very keen on working with Government to make that transition.
Chair: Thank you. Let’s move on to some of the innovative approaches that the bus strategy may deliver. Over to Ben Bradshaw.
Q149 Mr Bradshaw: Isn’t price what will get passengers back on the buses? If so, what, if anything, does this new framework allow local authorities and operators to do on price?
Linda McCord: I am happy to take that first. Earlier, I mentioned that in the west midlands there was a reduction in fares and that we have seen a 9% increase. In Cornwall, as part of the enhanced partnership or the BSIP, they are doing a trial that reduced fares from April. The aim there is to continue getting people back on to buses and to attract people who may not see bus as an option.
On the whole idea of getting people out of cars and on to our buses, price is certainly a factor. I would also like to mention that we often talk about getting people out of cars and on to buses, but it is not that we are trying to get people to get rid of their car. I have invested in my car, but maybe the bus is attractive enough for me to make decisions to do that sometimes. The more I do, and the more I see that it is a viable alternative price-wise and for punctuality and reliability, it might convince me to do it even more.
It is about value for money as well as price. It is what you are getting. Certainly, we have seen areas where people are looking at reducing price. The aim there is to try to attract people, and we have seen where it has worked.
Q150 Mr Bradshaw: Peter, are there any other innovations, either related to price or others, where you think you can get usage up, or successful models?
Peter Hardy: Innovation was happening pre-pandemic anyway. Some of it has speeded up as a result of what has gone on, particularly things like contactless payment. In that way, it has brought things along. Price is important, but I would go with the value of the overall thing and what it is being compared with. If we are to make the bus become central to people’s lives, with the levelling-up agenda and everything else that we want to achieve, it has to be relevant to people. It has to be seen in the wider context of things like parking policy and management.
The innovations are there. They are things like demand-responsive transport and booking things on apps and everything else. It is all there and it will come through, but for a lot of areas we are in danger at the minute, particularly come October when support funding ends, of losing more service. That will be more important to people if they see further reductions in services. I think it is about the basics being in place rather than innovations.
Q151 Mr Bradshaw: Linda, we heard earlier that Reading has the second highest usage after London. Reading’s spokesman seemed pretty confident that that was partly thanks to their ownership model. Would you welcome the Government ending the restriction on municipal ownership?
Linda McCord: What we saw in Transport Focus, when we used to run our bus passenger survey, was that Reading was always top on satisfaction. That is definitely what was happening then. That was across the board. What is important is that there is the freedom to be able to be innovative, whatever the model is. I mentioned earlier that as the end user we do not care. We want you to deliver what we are paying for. Certainly if there was the ability to do different things, I think that would be important.
Q152 Mr Bradshaw: Councillor Renard, would the LGA welcome the ending of the ban on municipal ownership?
Cllr Renard: We certainly would. In fact, we would probably go further and ask that all local authorities have the same sorts of powers and flexibilities extended to them that you see in London. These should be matters of local choice and local determination. My own authority owned its own bus company until a few years ago. Unfortunately, our experience was a little bit different from Tony Page’s in Reading. In order to get the improvements delivered that we wanted to see, we sold it to a private company, which, I have to say, has taken it on by leaps and bounds and improved service reliability and quality. In my view, these should be decisions that are taken locally in a local context and are best decisions for local people.
Q153 Chair: Ben, it is interesting that you touch on that. Our Committee made a recommendation that franchising should be available to all because then it acts as an incentive, so that they can get a better partnership. The next tier would be partnership, but, if that does not work, it should be municipals for all. Obviously, the legislation did not agree with that. The Government have now brought in franchising for all, but they have also, as you have reminded me, left open the concept of municipals being extended. Do any of the witnesses know where the Government’s current view is on that, or is it just a line thrown in that has not been developed? Does anyone know?
Linda McCord: I do not; no.
Peter Hardy: No.
Cllr Renard: No.
Chair: We should follow up on that. I think it is important for us as a Committee. Our final section is to catch up on where the numbers are following the pandemic and where the assistance is. Over to Greg Smith.
Q154 Greg Smith: Mindful of time, I will put this to Linda, but if either of the other witnesses want to jump in with something burning, please do. Clearly, the pandemic was a difficult time for absolutely everybody. The numbers using buses, and every other form of transport, were very much down. What is your take on how usage numbers have increased as restrictions have now been fully lifted? Where have you seen changes in patterns of use? For example, on the railways we know that there is much more leisure and weekend usage post pandemic than commuting usage. What steps need to be taken to bridge what remains of the gap?
Linda McCord: As you say, travel habits have changed right across, whether it is rail, bus or other modes of transport. One key group of people that we in Transport Focus have looked at, and we have an Insight coming out very shortly, is concessionary pass users. What that has shown is that more than half of concessionary passholders say that coronavirus is still a major concern for them. Work needs to be done in that particular area to let people know that buses are safe, and that people do not need to continue to worry about that. It comes back to my point about the priority of cleanliness and expectation.
We have definitely seen an increase in leisure use. That may be an area that should be looked at more. Interestingly, in the Insight that we are going to be releasing fairly soon, 28% of people who may not use buses that much, and who could have concessionary fares but do not, say that if they knew more about local services—frequency, where they go, how they use buses, though that might sound a little bit strange, how much it costs, and so on—it could encourage them to consider using the bus more.
We touched a little bit on this in the previous session. It is the marketing. It is getting the message around that, first of all, our buses are safe. Secondly, our buses are wonderful. Sometimes the perception of our buses is a lot worse than the satisfaction of those who use them. There is a piece of work on that as well.
On your question about usage, across the country we are seeing 80%, as Pete Bond mentioned. Work needs to be done to encourage people back on to our buses. The way we do that is to ensure that we deliver the basics of punctuality and reliability, give good value for money, and try to break down some of the barriers for people who do not use our buses.
Q155 Greg Smith: Is there a chicken and egg problem? With habits changing, the temptation for operators will be to change timetables to meet the new, perhaps later in the day, leisure usage, which then is a disincentive to get back on the buses for commuting to work, for example, or going to school, because the capacity will have been reduced.
Linda McCord: Absolutely. The first time I decide to make the decision to get out of my car and use a bus, and it does not go where I want to go, or it is not at the times I want or it is just not delivering my needs, I will revert. The risk facing some areas is real. If the funding is not there in the short to medium term, or indeed if patronage does not come back, what they have left to them is to reduce services, and that will not help anybody.
Q156 Greg Smith: That is very helpful. Do any of the other witnesses want to come in on this question about patterns of change post-pandemic recovery?
Cllr Renard: Just a quick addition, if I may. While the LGA agrees that roughly 80% of pre-pandemic levels is where we are, the picture is very local. Some areas are bouncing back a lot more strongly than others. We are also seeing a trend where, as was just said, fewer older people are tending to get the bus. That may be partly down to fear of Covid, or it may just be that they have a preference for their own vehicle. The picture is variable across different parts of the country.
Q157 Greg Smith: Would it be fair to say that there is a big divide between urban and rural in that difference?
Cllr Renard: Certainly. If you look at footfall statistics for the main urban cities like London, Manchester and so forth, the number of people coming back into those centres is much lower than in urban areas in the north of England. It is very variable. We have to look at what businesses are doing with hybrid working, which is partly responsible for the shift to more leisure use.
Peter Hardy: I think there are rural/urban differences, yes. Rural is still running generally at lower proportions pre-Covid than urban, particularly because it was those networks that were most dependent on concession usage, which we have already said is lower.
Of course, in some cases, because we have grown over the pandemic to rely more on home deliveries for everything, distribution depots require more public transport to bring people in. A number of bus operators have successfully put bus services into service at those distribution networks for shift staff. There has been a changing pattern there as well.
Greg Smith: That is interesting.
Q158 Chair: The final point to put to Councillor Renard was made by two of the previous witnesses. You may have heard them. They specified that the ticketing innovations that they felt they were encouraged to come up with have fallen foul of the Competition and Markets Authority, or have certainly raised issues with it. Is that a matter that you are taking up on behalf of your members with the Department, or is it being left to individual councils to all get legal advice?
Cllr Renard: As a membership body, if there is an issue that is being raised with us across the country, we will take that up separately. I will need to check what representations we have actually made, but we certainly take the view—the point was made earlier—that, if we are to get people out of cars and on to buses, they need to be more regular, reliable, affordable and cost-effective. We will lobby on that basis. We will be happy to supply the Committee with some correspondence on that.
Chair: I was just going to ask if you would be able to write to us to give us an overview of what you believe the issue is and what you are looking to do, and indeed would like the Department for Transport to do as well. That would be very kind.
Thank you all for your time. I apologise for the late start, but hopefully you found the previous panel of interest as well. Thank you again. I wish you a good rest of your day.