Proposed amendments include changes to the notice period before services are varied or cancelled, along with TUPE adjustments
The Department for Transport (DfT) has published its response to the Bus Services Act 2017 consultation on draft regulations and guidance.
The consultation took place from February 8 – March 21, 2017. A total of 74 substantive responses were received, which included 31 from local authorities, 17 from bus operators, five from organisation representing passengers, three from trade unions, three from organisations representing national parks, eight other organisations and nine from individuals.
The full response can be viewed at https://bit.ly/2kTN2ps.
The DfT agreed to make a number of amendments to the act based on the responses received. These include:
Franchising: service permits
The DfT agreed to amend regulation 2 of the Franchising Schemes (Service Permits) (England) regulations to ensure that they are flexible enough to allow authorities to award short notice service permits. It also proposed to amend regulation 4 to allow authorities to specify, as a condition that can be attached to a service permit, the notice period that operators must abide by before they can withdraw or vary a service, and a further amendment to ensure that neighbouring authorities are consulted on the details of a service permit scheme.
Franchising: transitional provisions
The DfT proposed to amend the Public Service Vehicles (Registration of Local Services) (Franchising Schemes Transitional Provisions) (England) regulations to allow short notice registrations to be accepted where the authority enters into an agreement with an operator to provide a service.
Franchising and enhanced partnerships: transfer of staff (Application of TUPE)
The DfT proposed changes to clarify that roles and groupings of employees are one of the factors that can be taken into account when considering whether staff are ‘principally connected’; and make it clear that the authority may specify the timescales within which they are seeking agreement as part of the notice that they are required to publish.
A further proposed change would remove time spent in continuous employment as a factor to be taken into account when determining whether a member of staff is ‘principally connected,’ and the DfT also suggested that employees who spend at least 50% of their time assigned to the affected local services should be considered.
Enhanced partnerships: operator objection mechanism
The DfT proposed to amend the Bus Services (Objections to Enhanced Partnership Plans and Schemes) regulations to clarify that if there are three operators or fewer, they would all need to object for the objection mechanism to be triggered.
It also proposed to amend the regulations to base the mileage data on registered mileage and clarify how ‘frequent’ services should be dealt with.
Information on varied or cancelled services
The DfT agreed that circumstances in which an operator can apply for a short notice variation or cancellation should also be added to the list of exceptions, reflecting the fact that these sorts of changes are usually made to enhance a service or in response to road traffic regulation issues.
It also proposed to amend the PSV (Registration of Local Services) (Amendment) regulations to allow patronage data to be released for the purposes of discussing the provision of replacement services with alternative providers.
The DfT also agreed to introduce a pre-notification period, and to give operators discretion to progress their application to the Traffic Commissioner more quickly where they have the support of the relevant authorities.
The DfT plans to change the exchange of information between an authority and operator before a service is varied. The new process would see the operator send
a complete draft of the proposed application to the authority 28 calendar days in advance of the date the operator intends to notify the Traffic Commissioner of its intention to cancel or vary the service. The authority has 14 days calendar days to consider and contact the operator to request information if necessary, and the operator has 14 calendar days to supply the relevant information. The operator then submits its application to the Traffic Commissioner. The registration period will be reduced from 56 to 42 days for services operated under PSV operator licenses and from 28 to 14 days for services operated under section 22 permits, in order to maintain the overall time taken for the whole process of 70 days and 42 days respectively.
Operators and authorities will be allowed 14 days to request and provide the relevant information respectively, up from seven.
Franchising Guidance
Concerning the role of an auditor, the DfT proposed to amend the guidance by recasting it into two sections, the first dealing with the matters to be taken into account by a franchising authority when selecting a person to act as an auditor, and the second dealing with matters to be taken into account by the appointed auditor when compiling their report. It also proposed to make clear that
the auditor or audit company used to prepare the report should not be the auditor or audit company also used by the authority to assist with the development of its business case.
Enhanced Partnership Guidance
The Department proposed to amend the initial guidance and said it will revise it further, in due course, to include examples from early schemes, describing the guidance as a ‘living document.’
Responses A CPT spokesman said: “CPT welcomes DfT’s response to the consultation, and is pleased that the views expressed by the industry have, in many cases, been taken on board. We will continue to engage constructively with DfT at all levels as the Regulations and Guidance are laid before Parliament and brought into force.”
Lianna Etkind, Public Transport Campaigner at Campaign for Better Transport, said: “The Government’s consultation response brings an operational Bus Services Act one step closer. Local authorities and operators will now be able to set standards including multi-modal, multi-operator ticketing; fare discounts; customer service standards; and vehicle standards. There’s a huge opportunity here to make bus services more attractive, affordable and environmentally friendly, bringing benefits not just to passengers but to the wider community.”
Claire Walters from Bus Users UK, commented: “While some of the adjustments that have been made to the draft regulations and guidance on the Bus Services Act aren’t as helpful as they might have been, they’re certainly better than nothing.
“There is recognition of the importance of passenger input and, crucially, the guidance highlights the need for local authorities to ensure that new services under this legislation have a positive impact on passengers. As a passenger champion, these elements are of primary importance to us but how they are achieved will be the acid test.”
