Bus service provision

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Campaign for Better Transport

Dear Essex County Council,

I am writing to you to request the following information:

1. What was the total net spend for supported bus services in the fiscal year 2018/19?*

2. What was the total net spend for supported bus services in the fiscal year 2009/10?*

*Note: These refer to the Department for Transport’s definition of a supported bus service as: “one where a local transport authority has invited tenders for the operation of a service (not e.g. seats on a bus or subsidised tickets etc), and a contract exists as a result of that tender”. Please, exclude extra sources of funding such as Section 106/developer funding, Community Infrastructure Levy, local authority staffing and publicity, RTPI expenditure and revenue, the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG), Local Education Authority funding for home to school transport, NHS-funded non-emergency patient transport, social services transport, voluntary transport and other central and national government grants or income streams.

3. How many and which supported routes have had cuts in services in the fiscal year 2018/19 and (for example loss of weekend or evening services)? Please state if these are partial (the numbered service still runs but on fewer times) or total (the numbered service is completely withdrawn) cuts.

4. How many and which of the previously supported routes have been taken on commercially?

5a. What was the total net spend on free school transport (11-16yr olds in mainstream education) in 2018/19?

5b. How many pupils was this for?

6a. What was the total net spend on free school transport (11-16yr olds in mainstream education) in 2013/14?

6b. How many pupils was this for?

The information provided will be used as part of a national picture of the effect of changes to central Government funding has had on the provision of local bus services. In each case we are only requesting information related to your local authority.

Our work also seeks to promote examples of local authorities that have protected bus services, sometimes in innovative ways. Please do feel free to share any information you feel is relevant on how your council has protected bus services.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Todd

Campaign for Better Transport

Your Right To Know, Essex County Council

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your recent request for information which has received by Essex County Council.

Your request is covered by the Freedom of Information Act, under which we must respond within 20 working days.

We will determine and let you know whether we hold the information you have requested and consider whether we are able to release the information or if it is exempt from disclosure.

ECC does not usually charge for providing information to its requestors as the provision of electronic copies is negligible, however under certain circumstances we may have to do so if providing the information costs more than £25. We will let you know before we do any work that would incur a charge.

Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this request will be published on the Essex County Council website. The website address is https://www.essex.gov.uk/Your-Council/Yo... . All requests will be anonymised and no personal information including contact details will be disclosed as part of this process.

Please contact me if you would like further advice or assistance about your request, or your right to access information held by Essex County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Bethany Gant | Information Governance Assistant
Your Right To Know
Transparency Team
Essex County Council

T: 033301 38989
E: [email address]
W: www.essex.gov.uk

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Your Right To Know, Essex County Council

4 Attachments

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your request for information. Please find our response to
your request on the accompanying document(s).

I trust that this information satisfies your request. However, should you
require anything further, please contact me and I will endeavour to assist
you further.

If you are not satisfied with your response, please contact me so I can
try to resolve the issue. Alternatively, if you wish to make a complaint,
you can find the details at
[1]https://www.essex.gov.uk/Your-Council/Yo...
   

 

If, after following our complaints procedure, you are still not satisfied,
you are entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to review our
decision. You can contact the Information Commissioner at Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF; Telephone 0303 123 1113.

 

Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this
request will be published on the Essex County Council website. The website
address is
[2]https://www.essex.gov.uk/Your-Council/Yo...
. All requests will be anonymised and no personal information including
contact details will be disclosed as part of this process.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Bethany Gant | Information Governance Assistant

Your Right To Know

Transparency Team

Essex County Council

 

T: 033301 38989

E: [3][email address]

W: [4]www.essex.gov.uk

[5]cid:image001.jpg@01D050D6.15070770[6]cid:image002.jpg@01D050D6.15070770[7]cid:image003.jpg@01D050D6.15070770 

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Campaign for Better Transport

Dear Bethany,

Thanks you for your response. Unfortunately I cannot access the Excel spreadsheet directly or indirectly so I do not have the figures for the supported bus services as requested in questions 1 and 2.

Could you resend or put in another format that is accessible?

Many thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Todd

Campaign for Better Transport

Your Right To Know, Essex County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Sir,

Please find attached response to your FOI enquiry. I have converted the spreadsheet into a PDF document, and hopefully this will now be accessible.

Trevor Anthony-Jones
Your Right To Know
Information Governance Team
Essex County Council
T: 033301 38989
E: [email address]
W: www.essex.gov.uk

This email (including any attachments) is intended only for the recipient(s) named above. It may contain confidential or privileged information and should not be read, copied or otherwise used by any other person unless express permission is given. If you are not a named recipient, please contact the sender and delete the email from your system. The contact details of the sender and recipients constitute personal data. These along with any other personal data in the email (including any attachments) must be handled in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. It is the recipient's responsibility to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to check for software viruses.

Campaign for Better Transport

Dear Trevor,

Many thanks for this - the data is now readable.

In terms of the bus subsidy figures, I am taking the amount paid to the commercial operators as the nett spend and that the £10m figure in 2009/10 for that did not include the ferry figure, etc - those were additional figures? As per our original request we are after the figures without BSOG included, the idea being to understand what is the actual cost the council is having to pay to support bus services after BSOG, S106, fares, etc. have been taken into account. So if these figures include BSOG please can we have this element removed or can you let us know how much it was.
I wasn't sure what the concessionary fares and some other amounts represented. Are they sources of income to offset against the contracted services?

Thanks,

Yours sincerely,

Chris Todd

Campaign for Better Transport

Your Right To Know, Essex County Council

Good Afternoon,

I apologise for the delay in responding to your query. We have had a response from the service area and they have provided the following information.

The local bus spend in 2009/2010 - £10,213,801.63 The local bus spend in 2018/2019 - £9,778,718

We hope this answers your query.

Yours Sincerely

Bethany Gant | Information Governance Assistant
Your Right To Know
Transparency Team
Essex County Council

T: 033301 38989
E: [email address]
W: www.essex.gov.uk

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