Background
Local bus services are the most used form of public transport and successive governments have aimed to improve bus services and increase bus use. Since our last report in 2020, Improving local bus services in England outside London, government has sought to reform bus services to make them more frequent, reliable, better coordinated and cheaper, alongside supporting post-pandemic recovery. Government is also preparing to expand powers to all local transport authorities to determine how local bus services should be run.
The Department for Transport (DfT) is responsible for supporting bus services through policy, legislation and funding. Bus services are mostly run on a commercial basis, but there is also public funding from DfT and local authorities. In 2023-24, DfT spent £1.2 billion on subsidies to the bus sector outside London.
Scope
Our report will examine whether DfT has delivered value for money from its support to local bus services outside London since 2020 and whether it is set up to achieve its aims for improved services and growth in usage. It will assess:
- whether the performance of local bus services has improved
- whether DfT has understood the effectiveness of its actions in delivering its ambitions for improving the performance of local buses, and addressed barriers to improvement
- to what extent DfT is set up to effectively address the remaining barriers, and key new and ongoing risks, to improving local bus services and growing usage
NAO Team
Director: Jonny Mood
Audit Manager: Kristian Barrett