Bus funding cannot be sustained

Saturday 14th May 2011, 2:30PM BST.

IN THIS column yesterday, we questioned what benefit islanders were receiving from the heavy level of subsidy going into the bus service, particularly since there now seems every chance that the taxpayer is to be leant upon again to provide a new fleet of vehicles to replace those currently causing problems.

Some readers, however, have contacted us to suggest that our look at the sums involved was not hard enough.

When more than £3m. was spent re-equipping the fleet, did anyone seriously think the exercise would have to be repeated in just eight years’ time?

On that basis, and at today’s rates, islanders will be expected to spend, say, £5m. on even more new buses in, say, 2020 on top of the £20.8m. that would have been poured into Island Coachways through the annual subsidy, again at today’s rates.

In reality, the amount would be more because the level of support is based on any shortfall that the company incurs and is therefore open-ended and increasing.

When Tribal Consulting started looking through States expenditure as part of the (still awaited) financial transformation programme, its officials could not believe the no-strings attitude towards pumping public funds into a private company.

To this day, it is not clear to islanders on what basis that money is received by Island Coachways.

Yes, it is a subsidy but who vets the costs which make that subsidy necessary?

Who has said that the salaries senior management and directors pay themselves are reasonable?

If the taxpayer contribution makes the difference between the company remaining viable or not, should those salaries be published?

In addition – and a point picked up by the former head of Guernseybus – what happens to the income generated by Island Coachways through private hire and its recently introduced driving school?

Are any of those operations cross-subsidised by the taxpayer?

None of this is meant as an attack on the service or those who operate it but there some worrying conclusions from what’s emerging:
The current funding model does not appear sustainable and, in any event, a lot of money is being spent on a service that most islanders do not use.

1
Tony

May 16, 2011 at 1:01 pm

2 comments ..

1 Most of the Island cannot believe the amount of money Tribal is being paid for stating the bleedingly obvious …

2 If Guernseybus were a shining example of how to run and fund a service it wouldn’t have collapsed practically overnight…..

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2
Paul Le Page

May 16, 2011 at 5:21 pm

“The current funding model does not appear sustainable and, in any event, a lot of money is being spent on a service that most islanders do not use.”

I think this comment nails it on the head.

Somewhere along the line the idea of using buses as regular public transport has not grabbed the imagination of the public. We are therefore left with subsidised half empty buses far too big for our roads trawling round the island, while many islanders continue to use their cars.

There is simply no point continually pouring money into a public transport system without it being part of a all-encompassing traffic strategy – and since the draconian measures required to get islanders out of their cars (aka political suicide for any deputy with the balls to try it) are as likely as turkeys voting for Christmas I suggest it is pointless pouring millions of pounds of public funds into a service hardly anyone uses regularly.

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3
Dani

May 17, 2011 at 10:12 am

I use it regularly and I don’t think it would hurt others to either.

I remember when I was younger I would use them to get about because I couldn’t drive. I was always suprised when my mates would say they had never been on one, their parents took them everywhere in the car.

I have definitely picked up on some snobbery about using the bus as well.

I was over in Jersey though and noticed a lot more people used their service, younger people that is. Maybe it would be worth looking into what they are doing right so GSY could benefit also.

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4
Eh

May 17, 2011 at 12:23 pm

The buses are useless to me, they don’t start early enough nor run late enough, and I am sure that to start them earlier and run them later would just cost more money for more empty buses (well one person on board – just me). But then perhaps the service should be subsidised for me!

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5
Gilthead

May 17, 2011 at 1:45 pm

Dani – ref Jersey – pretty simple really. Their bus service is run by a professional company.

On bus usage – it simply doesn’t work for me or many, many other people.

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6
Tony

May 17, 2011 at 7:58 pm

@Gilthead

I think the problem is that we don’t have a company with the commercial freedom to do what we all know should be done with the services – i.e. drop all the underused services and introduce a rolling programme to replace the fleet with vehicles suited to the island.

However they are just there to run the service dictated by the States in vehicles owned by the States. I would imagine the States is unwilling to cut any services ( because announcing cuts is never a good move politically ) . The current fiasco smacks of political manouvering to me – rather than relinquish control to a sensisble commercial setup they are despereate to hang onto it and are setting the groundwork for blackmailing the States into funding a new fleet of buses. Yet again ….

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