Written evidence from Soar Valley Bus
Ltd (BUS 44)
ORGANISATION BACKGROUND
Soar Valley Bus was incepted as an Industrial and
Provident Society under the 1965 Act in September 1979 with the
object of "operating transport services for the benefit of
the community and to assist the work of organisations and bodies
engaged in the relief of poverty, sickness and the disabilities
of age, the provision of facilities for recreation or other leisure
time occupation within the meaning of Section 1 of the Recreation
Charities Act 1958 and any other charitable purpose in Rushcliffe
and District".
It also provides a public transport service. For
a number of villages it is the only public transport available.
Our organisation is governed by the rules of the
Financial Services Authority to whom it submits an Annual Return.
The organisation is now also registered as a charity under both
the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commissioners.
From its headquarters in the family home of the currently
appointed Operations Manager, it has been in continuous operation
for 31 years, organised by an unpaid Committee of seven volunteers
and a pool of some 30 unpaid volunteer drivers, drawn from the
residents of the villages of the Soar Valley in the Rushcliffe
Borough area to the south of Nottinghamshire. No-one in our organisation
is paid or claims expenses and any operational "profit"
is placed in a vehicle replacement fund. I have been both the
Operations Manager and its Treasurer since 1999.
We operate ONE wheelchair accessible, low-floor,
16 seater minibus. All drivers take a stringent driving test,
are CRB checked and undergo a medical before being issued a Permit
to Drive by Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC). The vehicle
carries both a S22 and a S19 Permit from the Department for Transport.
Our vehicle has a Preventative Maintenance Inspection at six-weekly
intervals and an annual MOT.
CURRENT SERVICES
PROVIDED AND
FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Soar Valley Bus has always operated 14 S22 scheduled
services per week within a 30 mile radius of our operating centre,
its routes registered and approved by the Department for Transport.
Each service is registered as "hail and ride" and is
able to be accessed by any member of the public in the same manner
as any other public transport operation. These services initially
received funding from the NCC Community Transport Budget, but,
since October 2009, have been financed from the NCC LTP Budget
at a daily rate under deminimis contract. Fares are payable on
these services and concessionary fares and BSOG are claimed. These
services account for some 80% of our operations. In the financial
year 2009-10, we received LTP payment of £15,400 and carried
12,345 passengers, representing an annual cost per passenger of
£1.25.
Most of our remaining services operate under S19.
One weekly service is partially funded by a local Parish Council
to provide a door to door service for the elderly frail infirm,
the disabled and those with dementia, to allow access to shops,
doctors, town facilities, a day centre and luncheon clubs. Two
regular weekly services provide transport during term time between
school and nursery facilities for working parents.
In addition, as need arises, we transport school
children on educational visits and to and from "before and
after" school clubs, residents to clubs and societies and
the elderly on day trips. Based upon mileage and number of passengers
carried, NCC provides limited funding from the Community Transport
Budget. In the financial year 2009-10, we received an NCC grant
of £1,196 and carried 2,300 passengers, representing an annual
cost per passenger of £0.52.
The S22 Permit allows us to obtain additional, much
needed, income from private hire of our vehicle, with a volunteer
driver, to individuals in the evenings and at weekends.
IMPACT ON
REDUCTION OF
BSOG
The cost of diesel continues to rise, while BSOG
decreases. Our vehicle is now six years old. The older the vehicle,
the greater the fuel consumption and carbon emissions. We have
therefore been unable to claim the available increased BSOG rate.
Equally, NCC have not yet decided when Smartcard ticket machines
are to be fitted in community vehicles or if AVL equipment is
to be implemented. Hence we cannot claim these new BSOG incentives.
If a Smartcard ITSO ticket machine is eventually fitted to our
vehicle, its data will need to be downloaded daily to two central
sources. Our organisation has no office and no computer equipment
or WiFi. It operates from my home and will require me to journey
twice daily to our vehicle garage, collect the equipment and install
the necessary upload devices on my personal computer in my home.
IMPACT ON
CUTS IN
LOCAL AUTHORITY
COMMUNITY TRANSPORT
BUDGET
Until late 2009, our funding was derived totally
from the Community Transport Budget with an annual grant intended
to contribute towards vehicle and public liability insurance,
vehicle maintenance and repair, driver training and medicals,
upkeep of a garage, VOSA applications and assistance with match
funding for a new vehicle. All these costs are increasing.
We will still receive a small community budget grant
to operate S19. The transfer of our S22 services from the NCC
Community Transport Budget to the NCC LTP Budget, has had both
advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand we are assured of
limited financial support for our S22 services at a time when
the NCC Community Budget continues to be cut whilst, on the other
hand, our voluntary organisation is now perceived by the County
Council as a business, regarded by the Department for Transport
as operating in the same manner, under the same regulations, as
the major transport providers. The latter are reducing services
on uneconomic routes in our rural area and none operate a Sunday
service to allow travel to family or social activities. NCC have
axed Dial A Ride services and reduced the finance for car schemes
from the Community Transport Budget, thus increasing the necessity
for our services. Legislation now allows for the payment of S22
voluntary drivers. Our income would not allow for payment at minimum
wage rate, either to drivers or committee members, and if we pay
one, we must pay all. How could one differentiate?
IMPLICATION OF
FREE OFF-PEAK
TRAVEL
Over the past 11 years, having conducted a number
of surveys with all sections of the community and journeying periodically
on each service we provide, I have never come across one elderly,
disabled or disadvantaged passenger who objected to paying the
original half fare to travel. We were assured of an income from
that half fare. The result of the introduction of the full fare
concession is both a loss of income to the major bus providers
and to community transport, a real difficulty for county councils
to pay operators at the full loss rate from their current budgets
and an influx of relatively well-off passengers travelling long
distances free of charge, rather than locally as was understood
to be the intention of the legislation. Situated on the border
of three counties, our vehicle travels some 26,000 kms annually
in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire within our thirty
mile rural radius. A monthly claim must be made to each county
and each has either a different percentage rate of payment or
a negotiated annual payment for refund of concessionary fares.
What is clear is that on average, for every pound lost in fare
revenue, we are being re-imbursed less than half.
FOCUS ON
PASSENGERS
Our aim has always been to identify the transport
needs of everyone within the community, in particular the under-privileged,
those on low income and the elderly and then to find a way to
satisfy those needs. The essence of community transport is its
ability to be flexible, to be able to quickly adapt to the changing
needs of the community it serves. By its very nature it also provides
social care. It is particularly essential for the elderly. It
promotes dignity and independence, self-respect and helps to prevent
social isolation. Our drivers operate a "door to door"
service on each route, if necessary, lend a listening ear, carry
the shopping of the frail elderly, push wheelchairs around supermarkets
and towns and generally provide a social network by introducing
them to others and to community activities. It is well documented
that the greater the sense of wellbeing and contentment of an
individual, the less will be the need and the drain on the financial
resources of the NHS and social care facilities.
Much has been done by Government and the major bus
companies to provide low floor buses with wheelchair provision.
However, this does not meet the needs of those who, for example,
cannot walk a distance to a bus stop, those who cannot carry their
shopping up the hill back to their homes, those who can't lift
their shopping trolleys or walking frames onto the bus, those
who don't feel safe when a driver moves off before they have sat
down and those genuinely fearful of being out on their own.
Often too many rules and regulations inhibit the
flexibility to provide these essential services and nothing can
function without adequate finance.
Are we a national transport provider or are we a
community bus? What we are not is a business. Our organisation
is operated and driven by pensioners. Often communication with
both the Department For Transport and the DVLA reveal that their
employees are unaware of the regulations to which we must adhere
and the diversity of our operations. We are slotted into transport
regulation, legislation and financial support designed for the
major transport providers. Community Buses need to be treated
separately, with a secure funding system. For thirty odd years,
the residents of this area have given their time and money to
contribute to what is now being called the "Big Society".
If budgets are cut further, if we are subject to ever more restrictive
regulation, form-filling and continue to be under-funded, volunteers
will not come forward in the future.
We wish to remain an unpaid organisation benefitting
the community.
January 2011
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