We should be getting an announcement soon on the outcome of the latest spending review. For the bus industry in England this is always a time of slight nervousness as it waits to see if the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) is cut back or survives.
The industry has done a good job in preserving the grant, which has undergone a number of reviews in recent years. I’m not picking up any vibes that it is likely to be cut back or abolished but, as regular readers know, I’m not a great fan of BSOG.
Bus companies are commercial entities, but I constantly hear that many smaller operators depend on BSOG for their survival – in which case they can’t be commercial entities. It seems to me to be a nonsense that commercial businesses depend on government support to survive.
So, I recognise that if the grant was withdrawn some operators might go under, resulting in services being lost, and even the bigger operators might have to cut back.
But if local authorities want services to be retained, it’s within their power to subsidise them.
The industry has made the argument before that without BSOG they would have to cut services. But I’m not sure it’s for commercial operators to make the case for a government grant to maintain service levels.
Surely it’s for local authorities to decide which services need to be subsidised. They can then make the case for the continuation of the grant, which perhaps could be paid direct to local authorities and ring-fenced specifically to subsidise those services that would otherwise be cut.
Or, of course, local authorities could increase council tax. This is an entirely reasonable approach: local authorities can explain to its local electorate that council tax is being increased in order to maintain bus services – and then let the local electorate demonstrate if they agree or not through the ballot box at local election time.
I can see a weakness with this. Turnout at local elections is depressingly low, and will the local electorate’s vote really be influenced by such a specific issue?
Car owners, who probably make up the majority, might reject the idea leaving those who depend on bus services vulnerable. And why adopt this approach just for bus services? It could make local election time rather complicated if the electorate was asked to express a view on the level of support for every local authority service.
The beauty of BSOG is its relative simplicity and it serves a purpose.
I realise yet another review won’t be popular, but I wonder if the time has come for a really radical re-think about BSOG and to see whether there is a more imaginative and appropriate way to achieve its objectives.
