Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) benefits and (b) methods of increasing passenger involvement in bus service procurement.

Procurement of bus services where these are not provided commercially is a matter for local authorities. The Government has made no formal assessment, but would encourage local authorities to consult bus passengers about changes they propose to make to the services they procure. Transport Focus has produced a best practice toolkit to help local authorities do this.

As part of the Bus Services Bill proposals, authorities will be required to consult Transport Focus and other organisations representative of users of local services on their plans to take forward a partnership or franchising scheme. The Bill also requires authorities to give careful thought to how they intend to consult users to obtain views on how well the scheme is working.