The article you published on the involvement of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in franchising will hopefully be read by those who need to see it.
Last month I presented at a regional bus conference. Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin was due to be there, as well as Transport Commissioner for Greater Manchester Vernon Everitt. Both sent pre-recorded messages. Very poor, in that they don’t want to hear anything negative.
Part of my presentation highlighted the operators in West Yorkshire that are likely to lose out under franchising. There are 13 smaller companies running bus services in West Yorkshire (including ourselves), and part of what government needs to understand is that we can’t fill in heaps of paperwork.
We all operate tendered services, so clearly meet the quality criteria for the combined authority. I’ve heard from the larger operators that lost out in Manchester that prices for consultants to prepare bids ranged from £125,000 to £200,000. Clearly way out of our league.
The other less considered loss coming about from when SMEs are left behind is that we support the whole local supply chain. We buy locally and support other local SMEs. Public limited companies on the other hand buy centrally, not from the locality.
An interesting presentation at the conference from ComfortDelGro highlighted purchasing constraints in Queensland, Australia, where any suppliers to the local authority must buy a certain percentage from SMEs (some of this is done by subcontracting bus work to SMEs). They must also buy a certain amount from aboriginal suppliers.
Perhaps such subcontracting of work should be included over here? It will mean that we don’t have the mountains of paperwork to fill in and can still deliver well in the social value scores.
Craig Temple
Managing Director, Connexions Buses
