Right now, buses in Wales are privatised, allowing a few wealthy shareholders to prioritise profits over passengers. But you've got the power to change that.
The Welsh Government is consulting on plans to end the Wild West free market that lets private companies set fares, routes, and timetables in their own interests. Instead, councils would be able to regulate the network to the benefit of the local community.
It gets better! The Government's plans would also lift the current ban on council owned bus companies, allowing us to kick out the profit-hungry shareholders once and for all.
Win better buses by responding to the consultation to support these plans. There are 21 questions, but you do not need to answer them all. Below we prioritise the questions you need to answer to support public ownership. This should take just 5 minutes.
Start your response to the consultation now
Q1: Do you agree that change is required in how we deliver bus services to meet the needs of Wales’ citizens and respond to the climate emergency? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Q2: Do you agree that franchising is required to deliver the depth and pace of change to the bus network that is required in the context of the climate emergency? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Background: "Franchising" is another word for public control. It means that operators put in bids to councils to run services, no longer being free to just start operating services. Those that put in a successful bid operate under a contract from the council which specifies the services and how they will run, including routes, vehicle standards, timetables, fares, branding, passenger information and ticketing. They get a set contract fee to run the services, meaning any additional profits return to the network, not the operators.
Q3: Do you agree with the Welsh Government’s preferred franchising model as described above? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Q5: Do you agree that there is a need for regional consideration and coordination of bus network plans by Corporate Joint Committees, before combining them at a national level? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Background: Corporate Joint Committees allow neighbouring councils to help plan their networks in collaboration to best serve the interests of communities that travel across council borders.
Q6: Do you agree that letting and managing contracts at the national level by the Welsh Government through Transport for Wales offers the best opportunity to pool franchising expertise, and deliver economies of scale? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Background: Under public control, operators bid to run services under contract. Running these bidding processes can be expensive and complicated for a single council to do alone. Working together at the national level can save money and time.
Q10: Do you agree with the benefits of establishing a mechanism to allow a public service operator of last resort to ensure services keep running if a franchise fails? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Background: Sometimes private companies may fail to deliver their contract or pull out, leaving communities without essential services. A public operator of last resort allows the council to step in and run these essential services.
Q12: Do you agree that local authorities should be able to run bus services directly? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Background: This would allow councils to run publicly owned bus companies and direct them to meet the strategic aims of the community. It would also allow them to reinvest the profits into the bus network or cross-subsidise other services, keeping more money in the community, rather than losing it as dividends to distant shareholders.
Q13: Do you agree that local authorities should be able to set up arms-length companies to operate local bus services? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Background: An arms-length company gives councils another way to prevent private companies from running services, without having to run them directly themselves. Reading Buses is a council owned bus company run at arm's length. It has won multiple awards, reinvests £3m a year into its network, and has the highest ridership outside of London, growing 40% in just 6 years.
Q14: Do you agree that local authorities should be able to invest in or acquire bus companies? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Strongly Agree
Background: This allows councils to buy up bus companies, removing the need to set up a company from scratch. This makes it easier and often cheaper to bring buses into public ownership.
Q15: Do you agree that municipal bus companies should be able to raise funds by borrowing or selling shares? Please score from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Multiple-choice answer: Other
Open-text answer (in your own words): While allowing council or municipal bus companies more options to raise money for investment is good, issuing shares could allow private companies to start re-entering the network. It might also lead to profits leaving our communities as dividends, starting a cycle where more capital needs to be sought from outside as profits are not reinvested into services. However, if shares could be issues to workers or the local community through a cooperative model, this may ensure greater representation of passengers and drivers in decision-making and keep profits within the local economy.
Background: The Government argues that restrictions on council owned bus companies would currently prevent them from competing with private operators.
Q16: Are there any additional safeguards you would like to see applying to the use of these powers?
Open-text answer (in your own words, pick one of the bullet points):
I would like to see councils allowed to directly award the contract from their franchised/public controlled bus network to their council owned operator.
- This would save money, as the competitive bidding process takes up lots of time and resources.
- Direct award of contracts is present in several European countries.
- Nearly all services in Northern Ireland are run by the publicly owned operator, Translink.
- This echoes the principle of the public being the default provider, as has been argued for the NHS.
Background: The current plans would likely follow the rule that most franchising contracts have to be put out to an open competition, even if there is a publicly owned operator locally. This could allow private companies to under cut more municipal bus companies that do more for the environment or their workers.
Thank you for completing this consultation response!
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