About
From 1 January 2014, the Department for Transport (DfT) has paid an annual grant to eligible local authorities in England to replace the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) for tendered services.
As part of the grant conditions, we are required to report on how we have made use of these funds by completing a short survey issued by the DfT . Details of the survey are below.
Bus Service Operator's Grant survey and declaration 2022/23
Bus Service Operator Grant 2022/23 – Section A background and contacts
Q1. What is your local transport authority name? If your local authority is not displayed above, please type it below.
Somerset County Council is now a unitary authority know as Somerset Council
Q2. Name of the reporting officer: John Perrett
Q3. Contact phone number of the reporting officer: 01823 356968
Q4. Email address of the reporting officer: John.Perrett@somerset.gov.uk
Section B: Tendered Bus Network
Q5. What have you used the BSOG funds for? Please exclude any funding via Bus Recovery Grant and any other funding provided through the local authority. If there has been no spend on a particular element, please enter 0.
- A. Maintaining current tendered services £406800
- B. Increasing level of tendered services £0
- C. Investing in alternative services (e.g. community transport, taxi buses) £47147
- D. Investing in supporting bus infrastructure provision £0
- E. Other – Bus £0
- F. Non Bus £0 Total: £453947
Q6. If you provided an amount for A, B or C in Q5, did you place specific requirements on operators as a condition of payment (for example, setting a minimum standard of emissions requirement which needed to be met)?
No
Q7. If you provided an amount for C, D or E in Q5, please specify the type of services/infrastructure you have invested in.
Community Transport run under a section 19 permit Section B: Tendered Bus Network
Q8. Please provide details of which parts of your existing bus service you would not be able to deliver without the financial assistance from BSOG. If you did not spend any of your BSOG on maintaining current tendered services, please enter N/A.
BSOG funding helps provide for some local bus services in Somerset. We also provide some services under section 19 permits in the Community. If we did not receive this funding, then we would have to reduce expenditure on Bus Services/Section 19 services by the same amount which would result in service reductions/withdrawals in order to balance our budget. When BSOG was moved from operators to Local Authorities we used the funding to continue to make up the gap between the funding we were originally providing for contracted services and the BSOG which until that point was being claimed by operators in order to keep services going.
Q9. If you have used BSOG to increase the level of tendered services, please indicate how this has been spent.
N/A
Q10. Please provide an estimate of the number of tendered routes supported by BSOG in your LA.
Approximately 10
Section B: Tendered Bus Network
Q11. In addition to BSOG did your transport authority spend other financial resources on supporting bus services? Please exclude any funding from Bus Recovery Grant. Yes
If yes, please state the amount spent (excluding Bus Recovery Grant): £5342449
Q12. If you answered yes to question 11, please explain how money over and above BSOG/Bus Recovery Grant was spent. If there has been no spend on a particular element, please enter 0.
- A. Maintaining current tendered services £4502342
- B. Increasing level of tendered services £0
- C. Investing in alternative services (e.g. community transport, taxi buses) £840107
- D. Community transport run under a section 19 permit £0
- E. Network redesign/reconfiguration £0
- F. Bus stops/shelters £0
- G. Bus lanes £0
- H. Real time journey information £0
- I. Other £0
Total: £5342449