Please provide the information for the following 4 questions for the financial years 2017/2018 to 2021/2022. Breaking down the totals by services that are partially subsidised and those that are fully subsidised.
1. What was your local authority’s overall spend on supported bus services?
2017/18: £7,065,633.40
2018/19: £7,665,645.32
2019/20: £8,423,230.98
2020/21: £8,509,393.40
2021/22: £8,774,229.82
2. How many bus routes were subsidised by your local authority?
2017/18: 181
2018/19: 185
2019/20: 186
2020/21: 183
2021/22: 193
3. How many subsidised bus routes have been closed by your local authority?
2020/21: 1 route (Fully Supported)
4. How many subsidised bus routes (not including those that have closed) saw either a reduction in vehicles operating the route or a reduction in hours of operation?
2018/19: 1 route (Partially Supported)
2020/21: 2 routes (1 Partially & 1 Fully Supported)
5.Please you provide details of any routes that have been closed within answer 3, including the number of the bus route, the bus provider and the names of the first and last bus stops.
2020/21: PR6; Dartline Coaches; Sowton Park & Ride – County Hall;
6. How many subsidised bus routes are currently under review with regards to their continuation? Please break the totals down by whether services are partially subsidised or fully subsidised.
All 193 routes are in the scope of the review, but it has not been decided which routes will discontinue. This will depend on future levels of funding.
Please note, for Q1, Q2 and Q6, Devon County Council cannot give a breakdown of spend between partially or fully subsidised bus services, as to do so would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time. This is because we do not have this data marker listed against each contract. To do this would require us to manually add that data marker to each contract, collate them and then calculate the totals. The assessment would need to be repeated for each year. The number of services to assess is set out in Q2, it would take at least 90 seconds to do the work required for each service, which equates to over over 23 hours, in addition to the work already undertaken to answer all of the other questions.