Source · Select Committees · Transport Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Acknowledged
Establish a unified service with disabled people to receive and triage transport accessibility complaints.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Department for Transport work with disabled people’s organisations to design a unified service to receive and triage accessibility complaints or reports of failures, ensure that they reach the relevant operator, authority or regulator, and follow them up if not resolved. Such a service would require an investment in knowledgeable and resourceful staff and in effective and accessible advertising. This should be in place within 12 months. Data about reported problems gathered through this platform should be made available to operators, regulators, campaigners, parliamentarians and the general public. (Recommendation, Paragraph 105)
Government Response Summary
The government highlights existing work to improve information on rights and redress, and commits to exploring how complaints processes and escalation routes could be simplified, but does not commit to designing or implementing a unified complaints service within the specified timeframe.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The inquiry highlighted the complexity of complaints processes across transport modes and operators, and the Department has already been working with disabled people’s representative groups to improve the information available to people about their rights and where to seek redress. The Department partnered with the charity Scope to support their production of Right to Ride a one-stop transport rights guide that covers all land based public transport that operates in Great Britain including train, bus, coach, taxi and private hire vehicles. The Department will undertake further work to explore how complaints processes and escalation routes could be simplified through internal review and collaboration with relevant bodies. It is intended that this work will focus on how it may be possible to improve signposting people to the right channels and reduce the burden on individuals in having to navigate complex systems. This work presents an opportunity to consider how improved complaints systems may also benefit operators through more efficient processes and complaints handling, supporting a virtuous circle of transparency, efficiency, and accountability. The Department has begun work to assess the efficacy of current bus complaints pathways, and it is our intention to engage Transport Focus and other relevant complaints and dispute resolution bodies to map complaints processes and identify potential areas to achieve better efficiencies, including how data use and transparency can be captured, collated and published to promote accountability.