HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL: ENVIRONMENT AND TRANSPORTATION SELECT COMMITTEE

The `Transport in the Community' scrutiny review group is interested in your views about the following questions.

1. How does public opinion feed into the monitoring and review of

subsidised bus services and community transport, in Basingstoke and Deane ?

( The review group is interested in the extent to which the public has a voice in the ongoing monitoring and review of subsidised transport services. This may have involved you in one or more of the following: customer feedback surveys, comments or complaints systems, focus groups, annual evaluation, service development planning etc. The group is also interested in your views about the strengths and weaknesses of getting your voice heard)

a) Feedback from Existing Users of the Service: Basingstoke Dial-a-Ride (BDAR) is a "Company Limited by Guarantee", and one priority is to keep a very close monitor of customer's views, both of service quality and of their changing service needs. Feedback links with our existing customers are strong. The Board comprises 9 volunteer trustee-directors, 3 of whom use the service themselves and 3 others are closely associated with groups of users. One director has the role of User Representative. She has a nominated group of users of the service to liaise with, and her role as the point of contact is announced to all of our users in our regular newsletter. She is called upon at our 2-monthly meetings to report on any customer matters. We also check with all our recently lapsed users (or their families) why they no longer use the service.

b) Surveys of Non-Users of the Service: Feedback from potential customers who are not yet users of the service is much more difficult, and there is no routine process for identifying their needs. However, BDAR is represented on both the Steering Group and the Access sub-group of the recently formed Basingstoke Disability Forum. Through this we get to learn of transport issues faced by the groups represented in the forum, the majority of whose members have impaired mobility.

c) Service Development Planning with HCC: BDAR has 22 years experience of demand-responsive service and has good local networking capability. HCC has not invited us to help with Service Development Planning for the Borough, but BDAR would be very happy to play a lead role in any needs-based transport study projects. In its own recent review BDAR identified for HCC the top 4 issues where change would be most welcomed by BDAR customers, but HCC has been unable to provide any new resource to achieve these.

d) Service Development Planning with Basingstoke Community Transport (BCT) : As part of our recently formed working partnership, BDAR and its sister organisation BCT operate a joint management team. Each has strong ties to many of the community groups in the borough. Amongst other things, the joint team discusses transport service issues facing the mobility impaired and how best they might between them provide improvements.

2. What partnership working is taking place in Basingstoke and Deane in

relation to responding to gaps between identified transport needs and current

service provision, including when these are cross boundary ?

( The scrutiny of transport in the community is looking at what progress is being made by Hampshire County Council and partners in identifying and dealing with gaps in passenger transport services in respect of their ability to meet community needs; those needs would include being able to access healthcare, employment, education and training, shopping and leisure. To undertake this, working with partner organisations and community groups is essential. The review group is interested in being clearer about what partnership working you have been involved in, or know about, as well as your views about this )

e) Specific Access Issues: The two most common transport issues raised by BDAR's customers, and by members of the Basingstoke Disability Forum, are the difficulties for people with mobility impairment to get to/from the local hospital, and to/from the local Audley's Wood Day-Care Centre. These opportunities have been raised with HCC, but current "rules" in the Service Level Agreement bar BDAR from covering these services.

f) Current Cross-Boundary Provision: BDAR very rarely receives requests from its existing customer base to travel out-of-borough. When it does it tries to find the best travel solution for the customer. Lack of capacity means that BDAR cannot justify deploying it's own resources away from local work :it is also why BDAR has not researched how many people would wish to travel out-of-borough.

g) Partnership Working with Neighbouring Communities:

· BDAR Satellite for the Alton Community: On Tuesdays, in partnership with East Hampshire District Council, BDAR provides a Satellite Dial-A-Ride service working in and around the Alton area. Patronage in this service is growing such that it would now be worth working with EHDC to consider the case for increasing the frequency of this once-a-week service.

· Other Potential BDAR Satellites: Given the success of the Alton model, BDAR would recommend working with other local councils and community groups ( e.g. Tadley) to research the demand / provision for other similar satellite services working within their local communities. This research should include looking at the need for "cross-boundary satellites" (e.g Kingsclere area residents travelling to/from Newbury).

3. Are there particular population groups, associated with age, disability etc

or economic groupings such as job seekers and young people in

training, for whom addressing gaps is problematic ?

( The review group is aware that there has been a Hampshire County Council initiated review of the community's different needs for transport in Basingstoke and Deane. What the group would like your help in understanding better is whether there are particular groups in the local population for whom bridging the gaps presents a challenge; and if you think that there are, what these challenges might be, and how you see them being dealt with)

h) Discriminatory Issues: BDAR is entirely even-handed in providing its service to anyone with mobility impairment, and is not aware of any travel issues facing the mobility impaired community that are discriminatory on grounds of age, sex, etc - even type of disability.. However, there is "postcode discrimination" in that available funding severely restricts the transport service BDAR is able to provide for the mobility impaired in our outlying rural areas.

i) Existing BDAR services to our outlying rural areas: Our larger community areas like Tadley / Kingsclere / Whitchurch have a one-day-a-week semi-scheduled service to/from Basingstoke Town. Less populous rural areas have to rely upon the Town Service which, under current fare structures, is prohibitively expensive for customers. Both are regarded generally as minimal.

j) Developing a strategy for all the transport-needy in our Rural Communities: Comments from previous BDAR customers confirm that the recently introduced Cango Service for Hart fails their needs. It is not door-to-door, it is a scheduled fixed route service not a "go anywhere anytime" service, and there are often practical access difficulties for people using the buses. BDAR believes it would be worth examining extending the scope of DAR-type service to provide a single, fully-integrated, Demand Responsive service to cover the travel needs of all of the transport-needy people our rural communities. BDAR has the personal contacts to partner with a couple of rural communities as pilots to research & develop this notion. BDAR believes such an approach would deliver wins to both Service and Cost.

k) Current Un-satisfied Demand: Basingstoke has been a growing community over many years. However, lack of funding has meant that for at least the past 10 years we've had no extra funding to add capacity nor to develop the service in line with changing needs. We've also had to hold back on drives to increase public awareness of the service. Recent evidence gives some indication of the dormant demand now out there:-

· A publicity campaign in one rural area increased patronage to 250% of its prior level.

· On the back of small improvements to our service, total BDAR passenger numbers increased nearly 4% last year and have increased a further 9% in the first quarter of this year.

l) Sustainable Funding for the Base Operation. Not only has no funding been provided for growth, the base operation has been under-funded and we've been reliant upon charitable donations to maintain operations. This is not a sustainable situation:-

· After successive years of erosion BDAR now operates with zero working cash carry-over at the end of the financial year.

· The "annual allowance" for vehicle replacement has been held flat since 1997 : in 2006/7 it provided under 40% of the annual amount needed. We have been lucky to be able to raise enough charity money to provide two replacement vehicles in the past 5 years.

· All of our office furniture & equipment has come from "charitable donations". Last year HCC was unable to help fund urgent replacement of our old, unreliable IT systems : luckily, local charities funded the upgrade.

m) The Next Challenge - Funding Future Growth. HCC projections show continued growth for Basingstoke's community. In the 5 years 2006 to 2011 numbers of dwellings will have risen nearly 12% and total population is projected to grow at a compound rate of nearly 2% per annum. Numbers requiring DAR-type help with transport are likely to grow even faster with disproportionate growth projected in the older, financially challenged population.

4. Are commercial and non commercial transport services (such as rail, bus,

coach, community and demand responsive transport, and Hampshire County

Council transport) co-ordinated in your area ?

(The review group is interested in what could be done to achieve more effective

use of different kinds of passenger transport, for example to avoid empty seats,

overlapping services etc. It assumes that there is work ongoing in respect of this,

and is looking to find out how well this co-ordination works, from your point of

view. The group would also be interested in any views you have about how this

could be improved).

n) The BDAR / BCT Partnership: Following a consultants study commissioned by HCC, BDAR & BCT recently carried out a joint strategic review of operations to examine how they might work together more effectively. HCC supported the business proposition that resulted - which was a more-for-the-same targetted outcome. Phase 1 proposed relatively easy-to-achieve changes which are now largely implemented. These include operating a joint management team, sharing of vehicle and driver resources, and sharing good operating practices. Phase 2 proposed areas for further studies, including considering a joint operations office, assessing the case for financial merger, examining the scope for joint fundraising, and searching out / adopting good operating practices from similar operations in Hampshire and wider. Phase 2 is now on hold pending outcome to the HCC Tendering exercise.

o) The HCC Tendering Exercise: Prior to the recent Tendering announcement, DAR and CT operations across Hampshire were non-competitive and BDAR had linked with Eastleigh DAR to mutually share good practices. Since the Tendering announcement, not surprisingly, all such information exchange has ceased. All the indications are that the Tendering Strategy will ultimately worsen the service provided for the people with mobility impairment in our community.

p) An Alternative Procurement Strategy: Given numbers of CT and DAR operations across the County ( and indeed in other counties) there is enormous opportunity for sharing good operating practices. HCC does not have a robust process for identifying / developing / sharing good practices across its operations, but BDAR has extensive experience of setting up and running such a process and, prior to the Tendering Announcement, had offered to help HCC set up that process. BDAR believes there would be substantial benefits to both customer and to Funders if such a process were established

q) Partnership with Commercial Operators: BDAR has had no working links with the commercial operators of local Bus services, but it does liaise with South-West trains since both organisations sit on the Basingstoke Disability Forum.

Thank you for taking the time to give your views. They will be considered by the Transport in the Community scrutiny review group, which will be preparing their comments and recommendations later in the year.

We will be able to acknowledge your response if you provide your contact details. If you prefer to remain anonymous, please indicate in general terms the kind of organisation / group / community whose views you represent, as this will be helpful when the responses are analysed.

Name and contact details:-

James Edward Lawson

Chairman of the Board of Directors and Trustees, Basingstoke Dial-A-Ride

Home number :- 01256 861984 : e-mail : [email protected]

Name of organisation / group / community:

Basingstoke Dial-A-Ride

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