Documents from a secret consultation last year have revealed that the Department for Transport (DfT) is burying controversial guidance on the National Bus Strategy that, if implemented, would greatly increase costs, delay and legal risk for any local authority seeking to bring its buses into public control.
The statutory guidance on bus franchising was originally due in Spring 2021, a core commitment of the ‘National Bus Strategy’, and the only possible path to a ‘London-style’ bus network. By withholding the guidance, the DfT has caused local and combined authorities to waste over two years on ‘Enhanced Partnerships’; preventing any chance of an integrated transport network, while giving bus companies a free hand to cut vital bus services.
Our freedom of information requests have now revealed that the statutory guidance has been held back because it misrepresents the legislation on which it was based. If implemented, it would create much increased legal risks and lock every authority in England into temporary DfT policy requirements. These arrangements would be almost impossible to undo if there is a change of government – or even just a change of government policy.
Exclusive new documents to download:
- Statutory bus franchising guidance “Version 10”, sent out by the DfT to six Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) last July, with a request for feedback by the “final deadline” of 31 October 2022.
- The Urban Transport Group (UTG)’s damning response on behalf of the MCAs, showing that the new guidance would make franchising more difficult, costly, and greatly increase legal risks to local authorities. The UTG’s main accusation relates to the ‘Bus Service Improvement Plans’ (BSIPs) and compulsory ‘Enhanced Partnerships’ (EPs) required by the National Bus Strategy. The DfT has written these temporary ‘BSIP’ and ‘EP’ policies extensively into the new guidance, without any backing in the relevant legislation. If authorities were to follow this guidance, they would be under much-increased legal risk, especially “speculative legal challenges [from bus companies] seeking to exploit major loopholes.”
- Extensive 2021 input from the UTG, based on legal advice commissioned by a major law firm: 1) Legal Dimensions of the National Bus Strategy (March 2021) shows that the DfT had a chance to ‘de-risk’ the process after covid by extending direct award powers so that authorities could manage their bus network in the public interest and prevent drastic cuts. This would have been possible under existing legislation, but the DfT passed up the opportunity. 2) Legal Aspects of the National Bus Strategy (July 2021) calls for the release of new statutory franchising guidance and legislative measures to make the process easier, pointing out existing problems with the relevant legislation. The document explains that the requirements imposed by the National Bus Strategy on local authorities has created an even greater asymmetry of power with bus operators, encouraging private companies to manipulate negotiations at the cost of public funds.
Urgent questions for the DfT
Only six MCAs were asked to feedback on the statutory guidance: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, South Yorkshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire. As of October 2022, the DfT had received input from only the Urban Transport Group and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. We asked the DfT which other stakeholders were consulted on the statutory guidance, and at what stage bus companies and transport owning groups were involved, but it refused to respond.
We asked the DfT if they would now take the franchising guidance to “a full and formal consultation” as requested by the UTG. The DfT did not respond and would not comment on its current plans for the franchising guidance, eight months after the secret consultation. It also refused to say when other promised consultations on socially necessary services, municipal ownership and the Bus Services Operators Grant would take place.
On whether franchising has ever been a realistic option for any combined or local authority, and whether the National Bus Strategy guidance on EPs and BSIPs it has already published also lacks a basis in legislation, the DfT refused to respond.
What next for the failed National Bus Strategy?
The Urban Transport Group’s complaints to the DfT prove our 2021 predictions that the National Bus Strategy will fail to deliver – and will actually cause increased economic dangers to local and combined authorities. As Philip Alston, former UN Rapporteur for poverty, warned in 2021, partnerships are a “failed middle ground” that will only worsen the human rights breaches caused by drastic cuts to socially necessary services since 2010.
The DfT has ignored the Urban Transport Group’s warnings for years, passing up many opportunities to save taxpayers’ money, grow the bus market on a non-commercial basis, and fix the inadequate, lengthy process towards bus franchising in the existing legislation. Given the excessive negotiating power granted to bus companies by the National Bus Strategy, we have asked the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee to urgently investigate the DfT’s use of taxpayers’ money.
Grass roots campaigners have predicted this outcome all along, while fighting to bring the failed, deregulated bus system into public control. To get active on bus services and support them in their amazing work, we highly recommend the Yorkshire and Humber Pensioners Convention’s upcoming national bus conference ‘Campaigning for Outstanding Bus Services on 17th June. Join grassroots campaigners from all over the country in West Yorkshire, or attend online.
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