Bus operators are still making healthy profits
in Edinburgh, have received a total of £1.6bn from the Scottish Government for accepting free bus passes since 2006/07.
As well as having concessionary fares partly reimbursed, the firms receive grants from the Scottish Government to subsidise fares.
This has topped £522m over the last decade, though the amount handed out is decreasing. Last year’s £50m Bus Service Operators’ Grant is 15% down on 2006/07.
In addition, bus firms also get money from councils for running services which are categorised as “socially needed” but are commercially unviable. This support has been worth £506m to the industry since 2006/07 though it has been squeezed, with a 14% cut in the bus services councils pay for since 2011 – a move which has accelerated the fall in passenger numbers.
Industry insiders point to other factors such as the growth in car ownership, made easier in recent years with low interest rates and more stable fuel prices.
A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: “The Scottish Government continues to provide substantial support to the bus network – that’s why we have invested nearly a quarter of a billion pounds every year in support of bus services, concessionary travel and more incentives for the take up of cleaner, greener vehicles.
“While we have no plans for wholesale re-regulation, we are committed to promoting positive change and partnership working to improve bus services and are currently developing proposals for a transport bill which will include measures to further improve bus services.” DESPITE the dramatic fall in passenger numbers, many of Scotland’s commercial bus operators are still making profits.
The Sunday Post went to Companies House to see the finances of the players in the country’s bus industry.
We discovered that Western Buses, which carries around 85,000 passengers a day on Stagecoach services in and around Glasgow, made pre-tax profits of £9.2 million in 2014/15 – up from £4.1m in the previous year.
Elsewhere, Stagecoach’s Fife Scottish operation made a pre-tax profit of £10.2m on a turnover of £80.9m last year. This was up from £8.7m profit in 2013/14.
Significantly, of the £19m worth of subsidies issued to bus operators by Fife Council in the last five years, £15.5m has gone to Stagecoach – something which critics claim is an indication of how little competition there is for bus services in Fife.
The second biggest bus firm in Scotland is First.
Its Glasgow operation enjoyed a £7.1m operating profit in 2014/15, while First Aberdeen made £4.2m before tax last year.
Around 55% of the income received by Scotland’s 200 or so local bus providers comes from fare revenue and the rest is in financial support from the councils and Scottish Government. The amount of public money on offer has been squeezed in recent years with a drop in the reimbursement rate for the National Concessionary Travel Scheme and council cuts for supported services.
But Labour’s transport spokesman, Neil Bibby, said people would be asking questions about the profits made by private firms.
He said: “What is increasingly clear is that in Scotland right now we have a bus industry that puts profits before passengers.”
The bus industry counters this by pointing out the majority of profits are actually re-invested in new vehicles and technology.
Also, the industry’s public subsidies are dwarfed by the amount of taxpayers’ money handed to ScotRail.
A spokeswoman for Stagecoach said the firm had invested around £100m in new vehicles across Scotland since 2010.
She added: “The number of miles directly operated by Stagecoach on our commercial local bus networks in Scotland has actually grown over the past 10 years. This is in contrast to the cuts that have been made to services which are contracted and funded by local authorities.”
A spokesman for industry body The Confederation of Passenger Transport said: “Bus operators in Scotland continue to deliver highquality commercial services across the country.
“Bus fares in Scotland are lower than the UK average, while operators have invested well over £200m in the last five years on new fleet alone. The industry is committed to improving services.”