proposal on future funding of subsidised bus services in...
TRANSCRIPT
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Proposal on Future Funding of Subsidised
Bus Services in Northumberland
July 2015
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Background
Around 80% of bus service routes, which represent a greater proportion
of actual journeys, currently operating in Northumberland are run
commercially, i.e. without any Northumberland County Council input,
subsidy or support. This “commercial” network only covers routes that are
profitable.
The remaining 20% of services operating in Northumberland are either
fully or partly subsidised by NCC. The subsidised services comprise 51
routes or parts of routes that cover mainly rural but also some urban
areas.
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Northumberland Bus Network
Fully Commercial bus services Fully or partly subsidised bus services
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Subsidised Bus Services Consultation
An eight week consultation exercise has been carried out.
Consultees included:
All NCC Councillors
All Town and Parish Council Clerks
The North and West Village Hall Consortia
The VCS Assembly
Hard copies are available in Libraries/Mobile
The Council’s Peoples Panel
In total just under 800 individuals/organisations responded to the
survey.
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Priorities for supported bus services
Where bus operators are not willing to provide commercial services, we may
procure additional services to help meet the needs of our residents. Decisions
on which services to develop and support have to be made in a prioritisation
framework that responds to the needs of the community, and identifies the best
ways of securing additional services.
We propose to prioritise the services that we support using a hierarchy of
service provision. For each of the three Priorities identified we have established
the rationale for their importance to the community and for us, as well as
assessing the actions which will ensure they can be delivered
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
The Proposal
Northumberland County Council needs to will ensure that any services that we
support financially meet the needs identified as part of this strategic review of
supported buses. This will be achieved through adopting the following 3 key
priorities:
• Priority 1 – Supporting Economic activity, enabling residents and
visitors to get to key centres during peak times
• Priority 2 – Supporting social activity, enabling residents to access
essential services during the day, on a minimum of one day per week.
• Priority 3 – Enable children to travel to the nearest suitable school or
college (this includes both those children eligible for free home to
school transport and those who are no eligible for home to school
transport)
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Priority 1
Supporting economic activity, enabling residents and visitors to get to key
centres during peak times
Enabling access to employment is a key objective for Northumberland County
Council. It is therefore a high priority in assessing which bus services to support.
Our involvement in securing buses to help people get to work strengthens the
network to enable a wider range of employment opportunities for Northumberland
residents.
A total of 718 respondents answered this question with over 91% of respondents
endorsing the use of this priority when determining future funding of Subsidised Bus
Services:
Strongly Agree Agree
Neither Agree or
Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree
64% (461) 27% (195) 6% (41) 2% (17) 1% (4)
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Priority 2 Supporting social activity, enabling residents to access essential services
during the day, on a minimum of one day per week.
We cannot support bus services every day to all communities. Our review of
accessibility suggests that for many non-employment or non-educational needs,
trips are generally made less frequently than five days per week, and therefore a
base level of a minimum provision of one day per week, Mondays to Saturdays
between the hours of 9am-5pm, will meet the core access needs of individuals and
communities.
A total of 710 respondents answered this question with over 84% of respondents
endorsing the use of this priority when determining future funding of Subsidised Bus
Services:
Strongly Agree Agree Neither Agree or
Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree
48% (342) 36% (259) 9% (67) 4% (29) 2% (13)
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Priority 3
Enable children to travel to the nearest suitable school or college, this
includes both those children eligible for free home to school transport and
those who are not eligible for home to school transport.
We have a statutory duty to enable eligible children to get to school for free.
Children are normally eligible for free home to school transport because of distance
to their nearest available school, because of a disability or low parental income.
A total of 710 respondents answered this question with over 84% of respondents
endorsing the use of this priority when determining future funding of Subsidised Bus
Services:
Strongly Agree Agree
Neither Agree or
Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree
67% (475) 23% (160) 6% (45) 3% (20) 1% (9)
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Sustainability Criteria Once a bus services has been assessed in terms of it contributions to the three strategic priorities, the
following sustainability test will be applied.
In the past Northumberland County Council has used a simple cost per passenger criteria to assess
value for money for subsidised bus services. The disadvantage of this is that it tends to give priority to
short urban services which may be less valuable than longer rural services. This is because it does
not take into account passenger journey length. The proposed system for Northumberland seeks to
overcome these deficiencies, while retaining a system that is simple and understandable. The system
combines: Cost per passenger and Passenger need/benefit
RED = Changes made as a result of feedback from survey respondents.
Key
Cost per passenger Shorter distance
town services
Wider conurbation type
services Rural services
Remote rural services
Reasonable alternatives
available
Very High £7.00+ 1 1 1 1 1
High £5.50-£6.99 1 1 2 2 1
Medium £4.00-£5.49 1 2 2 3 1
Low £2.50-£3.99 2 2 3 4 1
Very Low £0.00-£2.49 2 3 4 4 1
1 Services not proposed to be provided or provided in a modified form to meet criteria
2 Services provided subject to funding
3 Second highest priority services
4 Highest priority services
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
As part of the consultation respondents were asked whether they agree with the approach and
sustainability test outlined above. In total 715 respondents answered this question with over 56% of
respondents in favour of the approach, whilst not overwhelmingly favourable it is worth noting that only
15% of respondents where opposed to the sustainability test.
Northumberland County Council uses funds to subsidise some bus services that would otherwise not
run. This subsidy ranges from 96p to £14 per passenger journey. Respondents were asked what they
think the maximum subsidy the council should pay per passenger journey. In total 662 respondents
answered this question.
The consultation document proposed a cap of £6.00 per passenger journey however in response to
the comments raised by respondents we propose to raise the upper limit to £7.00 per passenger
journey, which equates to the ‘mean or average’ response of all respondents.
Sustainability Criteria
Strongly Agree Agree Neither Agree or
Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree
8% (60) 48% (346) 29% (207) 9% (62) 6% (40)
No Subsidy £0.00-£1.99 £2.00-£3.99 £4.00-£5.99 £6.00-£7.99 £8.00-£9.99 £10.00+
3% (23) 6% (44) 14% (77) 23% (159) 16% (107) 14% (95) 24% (157)
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Sustainability Criteria For the purpose of this review we have re-defined services as
falling into one of the following definitions:
• Shorter distance town services – These services are short
distance services that primarily operate within the
boundaries of a town (within 2 miles of the centre of a town).
• Wider conurbation type services – These services primarily
carry passenger from edge of town settlements into the
nearest town or service centre (within 5 miles of town
centre).
• Rural services – These services carry passenger to towns
and service centres from more rural communities (within 10
miles of the nearest town centre).
• Remote rural services – These services carry passengers
from the most remote communities within Northumberland
(those communities that are more than 10 miles from the
nearest town or service centre).
For the purpose of this review we have identified a service centre
or town as being one of the 12 largest settlements within
Northumberland. The following map overleaf shows the 12
towns and the categorisation of routes that operate around and
between these communities.
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Proposed Savings
The subsidised bus services budget is £2.4m and the Future Funding of
Subsidised Bus Services in Northumberland document proposed a £200,000
reduction (8 per cent of the total budget). The survey asked if this reduction
was reasonable.
The majority of respondents, almost two thirds stated that the budget reduction
should be smaller than proposed (64 per cent) while almost a third thought the
proposed reduction was reasonable (31 per cent); the remaining 5 per cent of
respondents thought there should be a larger reduction to the budget.
Given the current financial pressures facing the Council and the need to realise
savings across all departments it is recommended that whilst unpopular the
Council should proceed with the planned £200k reduction in budget, achieved
primarily through efficiencies and the renegotiation of contracts
Larger Reduction Reasonable Reduction Smaller Reduction
5% (36) 31% (217) 64% (441)
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Approach to realising savings The Council will employ a number of practices to realise the savings whilst protecting
essential services and providing a stable and sustainable network:
Efficiencies through procurement – In the first instance the Council will ensure that it gets
the maximum value for its investment. We will work closely with the bus operators and
partners to identify opportunities to realise efficiencies and provide a network that meets
the needs of its users. This will include:
• Review those subsidised routes or part thereof that could be run on a commercial
basis without the need for any subsidy.
• Review what alternative provision is currently in place, the Council should not fund
any subsidised bus service that runs in competition with a commercial operation.
• Review current procurement practice to enable transport operators to provide
variances on the Council’s suggested timetable that would provide better value i.e.
reschedule and combine 1 day a week services so that it is possible for 1 bus to
deliver multiple services.
• Unlocking unused capacity in the existing bus network by rescheduling or combining
better with home to school transport.
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Approach to realising savings continued…
Efficiencies through rationalisation – were services or parts thereof are
underused. The Council will:
• Increase patronage by consolidating passenger numbers on services at
existing peak times.
• Explore the viability of alternative services, such as community transport,
car scheme, lift share etc.
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Approach to realising savings continued…
Protect existing services, by:
• Identifying possible funding opportunities from partner organisations
which will support the sustainability of the service.
• Putting in place a campaign to promote bus use throughout the
County, in order to drive up revenue through increased patronage.
• Continued work with transport providers to improve customer
experience of public transport.
• Continue to offer enhancements to the Concessionary Transport
Scheme to encourage public transport use i.e.
– Northumberland permits travel by concessionary passholder from
9:00am onwards (9:30am onwards nationally).
– The provision of companion passes for eligible disabled residents
– Free travel for pass holder before 9:00am when travelling for health
reasons
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Bus
Proposal
& Results
Survey Results
Available on the Councils website at: http://www.northumberland.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=17831
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Implementation
• Snaiths contracts – changes implemented
from 1st August 2015
• Remainder of West Area – changes
implemented from 1st October 2015
• North Area – changes implemented from
1st April 2016
www.northumberland.gov.uk
Copyright 2009 Northumberland County Council
Any Questions
Kirsten Francis Principal Policy Officer Economic and Inclusion Policy Team
Directorate of Planning, Economy and Housing
Tel: 01670 624741
E-mail: [email protected]
Neil Easton Policy Officer Economic and Inclusion Policy Team
Directorate of Planning, Economy and Housing
Tel: 01670 624743
E-mail: [email protected]
CONTACT DETAILS