Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much of the bus services operators grant (BSOG) was allocated by local authorities to operators of tendered bus services in each year since 2012-13; what estimate he has made of the total BSOG to operators of tendered bus services in 2015-16; and whether the BSOG budget is ring-fenced for use by local authorities to fund tendered bus services.

Since January 2014, BSOG for tendered bus services has been devolved directly to individual local authorities in England outside London. Some £10 million was devolved to authorities for the period January to March 2014, and some further £39 million to cover April 2014 to March 2015. An additional payment will be made in April 2015 to cover the period up to March 2016; this amount is still being finalised. The devolved funding is ring fenced so that authorities must use it to support bus services in their area, although they have the flexibility to decide how best to do this in order to benefit local communities.