Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2016-01-19 23:08:03 - Graham Ellis
I have been asked where the bus subsidy money of around 5 million pounds per annum comes from, and how it fits in with other council expenditure. Not sure if the web page at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council/howthecouncilworks/budgetsandspending.htm id the latest, as these chart are for the last financial year from the executive summary at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/financial-plan-2014-15-exec-summary.pdf, but (answering council expenditure first), transport is only 1%. It's unclear to me whther any bus subsidy falls under "Contract payments" and how much of the admin falls under "employees". [Financial report mirrored here - using a mirror so we keep a poun of reference even when the council site gets next years report]
Looking at income, 207 million council tax, central goverment grants of 67 million 'SFA' and 51 million 'BRRS' and 6 million other central grants. The chart in the report states that "Specific and Ring Fence grants are not included but do form part of the council's gross budget of almost 900 million pounds" - and as those items I've listed add up to just 331 million, there's a lot of them - or a lot of operating income ... to mke up that 900 million gross budget. I suspect a lot of that is pass-through as the net budget figure given is 333 million.
So - where does the 5 million public tranport subsidy come from? It an accountant's party to look at it in different ways. I'm told that BSOG (bus service operator's grant) is now paid to the council for subsidised services, and amounts to 3 million, and that profit from car parking and income from joint venture bus operations where a subsidised service that does better than planned returns a profit share element together are perhaps 1 million, leaving a million from the 330 million from general income, about two thirds of which is from council tax (see previous paragraph). So that works out to about £1.20 per resident per annum from council tax.
I'm conscious that my figures above do not inlude ENCTS - that's bus pass payments - and I think they are probably classified as being in the gross budget (turnover); the amount (colloquilaly) has been stated as being similar to the subsidy amount - so that's around a further 5 million pounds, and it's unclear to me how tight any ringfence is. But do note that if two million journeys less are made on the bus each year on ENCTS consessions, the council pays (in very rough terms) two million pounds less to bus operators. That's a low estimate, as consessions are used on commercial as well as subsidised journeys - somewhere between 7 and 9 million journeys a year (total) of which perhaps a third to a half are subsidised.
Should cuts go ahead, I'm unsure as to whether / how many council jobs that are involved in specifying and monitoring public bus services in Wiltshire would be lost. There is a small technical team with some excellent knowledge and skill, and I would suggest that under option 24/7 those skill would be a key part of the team .. with those with prior expereince very well placed to do the jobs.
The attached charts show the graphs I refer to, and also another chart showing how Wiltshire Council have held tax down lower than other authorities - whether this the correct choice for them to have made is an interesting question; it's a political decision the effect of which is to reduce council tax bills from what they otherwise might be, but to put pressure such as we're seeing on transport and many other areas too.
