Representatives from the UK Government's Department for Transport have last week (17 July) highlighted the work of the Bus Centre of Excellence (BCoE) during an oral evidence session to the Public Accounts Committee on their inquiry into ‘Local bus services in England’. 

The Department for Transport's representatives included Jo Shanmugalingam, Permanent Secretary; Conrad Bailey, Director General - Public Transport and Local Group; Stephen Fidler, Director - Buses and Inclusion;

Stephen Fiddler highlighted the BCoE’s Quality Rural Bus Conference, coincidentally taking place the same day as the evidence session, and how the conference will be exploring how bus services can ‘particularly benefit rural areas’. 

The Bus Centre of Excellence are running a [rural] transport event around how you improve bus services, what that excellence is in the places where growth has happened. 

Oral evidence from the Department for Transport highlighted how the BCoE is providing support to local authorities to solve challenges that more rural authorities face in supplying bus services:

We're providing [support] through the Bus Centres of Excellence... on how to actually crack some of those local challenges.

The Department for Transport then promoted the BCoE’s bus franchising support and role in sharing practical tools, and knowledge: 

the Bus Centre of Excellence has run a session [on franchising] with the Jersey team. We have a franchising network of authorities that are interested and we're taking them through some of the other models.

BCoE was further praised for enabling insight into skills challenges in the sector:

[The Department for Transport is working with]... the Bus Centre of Excellence Advisory Board to really make sure that the learnings we're getting on key skills areas really are chiming with what [BCoE] is hearing from their members from the sector.

The full oral evidence session is available to watch here.  

CIHT and BCoE look forward to continuing to work with the Public Accounts Committee, the Department for Transport, and the wider government to enable a transport network that works for all.