Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
Finalise bus service performance measures and develop evaluation plan for interventions
Conclusion
The Department does not know how it will measure local transport authorities’ performance on bus services. Bus service performance varies significantly across the country, yet the Department does not have the data it needs to identify under-performing areas and help them improve. Such measures might include reliability, affordability, frequency or the number of bus services. Later this year, the Department plans to pilot an outcomes framework which will specify potential metrics for each local transport authority. This will help the Department to understand performance and intervene where necessary, though it has yet to determine what such intervention might look like in practice. The Department also does not have the information it needs to gain a good understanding of what its bus funding has achieved overall. While minimising unnecessary data requests, the Department still has a responsibility to collect the right data to know whether its support and funding to the sector achieve its intended outcomes. recommendation a. The Department should, within a year, finalise a basket of measures and explain how it will use an outcomes framework to hold local transport authorities to account for their performance on bus services and support those performing less well. b. The Department should develop a monitoring and evaluation plan for its portfolio of bus improvement interventions.
Government Response Summary
The government is reviewing its monitoring and evaluation plan for bus interventions, with several evaluations completing in 2026 and 2027. It will develop an enhanced role for Transport Focus to monitor bus service performance using a consistent outcomes framework to identify and share best practices.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. for buses, with evaluations of Bus Service Improvement Plans, Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA), the Rural Mobility Fund (RMF) and £3 National Bus Fare Cap completing in 2026, and a ZEBRA round 2 evaluation completing in 2027. This programme is being reviewed and further developed following the Bus Services Act 2025 and wider departmental changes. The updated programme will be informed by a systematic review of the department’s current evidence gaps to target evaluation activity where it can add the most value. The updated M&E plan will provide evidence across the department’s portfolio of initiatives relating for example to fares, franchising, accessibility and access to information. Planned evaluations include the franchising and bus reform pilot programme launched in October 2025, an evaluation of the ending of the sale of non-zero emission buses (commencing 2027) and mandatory training on anti-social behaviour and violence against women and girls. Future monitoring and evaluation approaches will make use of the outcomes framework indicators and planned changes in bus data collection to improve the department’s access to data at local transport authority and regional levels and to provide more timely insights. Alongside targeted engagement with local transport authorities this will improve the department’s ability to monitor the rollout of new initiatives. To strengthen s approach to identifying and sharing best practice, the department is developing an enhanced role for Transport Focus to monitor bus service performance and outcomes across England using a consistent outcomes framework. This will enable systematic identification of high-performing services and effective practices. Transport Focus will work closely with the Bus Centre of Excellence to ensure these insights inform capability-building activities, training content, and peer learning networks, creating a continuous improvement cycle that helps local transport authorities learn from success and make tangible improvements for bus passengers.