NBC needs b G finance changel
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A COMPLETELY new financial structure is needed for the National Bus Company, recommends the House of Commons Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries in a report published last week.
It will provide the first headache for Lord Shepherd, who takes over as chairman of the State bus company on January 1 when Sir Frederick Wood leaves to become chairman of the National Research and Development Corporation.
The committee, under chairman Russell Kerr, wants the company to start talks about the future overall financing arrangements for the NBC.
And these talks will be aimed at providing realistic arrangements for replacing ageing vehicles within the NBC fleet. The committee wants the talks to be held with the Association of County Councils which would suggest that cash from the councils will be needed to fund fleet replacements.
The .counties have already indicated that whether they would be prepared to do this would have to be balanced against the social need for services.
Community buses are given a boost in the 200-page report. The Select Committee wants NBC to enter discussions with the Department of Transport and the ACC to look at methods of setting up a scheme to train new drivers for the community buses, flexible enough to meet local needs but comparable with the standard psv licence test.
In its recommendations the committee wants closer overall links between the county councils and NBC through the ACC so that regular and planned meetings can be held to discuss matters that affect both parties.
And to help this, the committee wants the NBC to give advance notice to the county councils when it is planning its market analysis projects over the next three years.
But the major recommendations of the report concern the financial arrangements for the future of NBC. If the recommendations are supported by Transport Minister William Rodgers, then NBC will be relieved of all the debts accumulated because of extra bus mileage operated during 1975.
This was the year that then Transport Minister Dr John Gilbert ordered NBC to continue to operate rural services that might otherwise have been discontinued.
NBC is also likely to be relieved of the debts it inherited when it took on responsibility for the London Country Bus Services.
Interest charges on the company's capital debt will be met by direct grant from central Government and not attributed to individual companies within the group, if the committee has its way.
Understandably NBC is delighted with the committee and its report, especially another recommendation to Mr Rodgers asking him to continue the new bus grant of 50 per cent beyond the end of 1981, when it was due to be withdrawn.
But in addition to the financial restructuring .of the company, which would be on a scale comparable with the recent restructuring of the National Freight Corporation, NBC would also be involved in regular discussions on rural bus services through a new working party with the ACC, set up to sort out the problems of rural areas.
If the recommendations of the committee are put into operation, it would seem. that NBC and its representatives will be engaged in a lot more meetings and talks — but very little actual action is proposed for the future of Britain's bus services.
But NBC gets a pat on the back from Mr Kerr and his committee for its "highly decentralised" organisation and a central office staff of no more than one member per £5m turnover.
The committee also points out that there is no foreign country with a transit authority comparable to NBC.
One of the few sections of the •bus operations to be criticised at all is the Scottish Bus Group whose vehicles do not cover the same mileage as NBC vehicles, says the committee — but it also points out that this is not to say that all the NBC subsidiary companies are satisfactory.
Mr Kerr and his committee think that the only way in which NBC can improve its productivity is to extend the operation of its one-man operated buses — and it sees no reason why a 100 per cent o-m •o bus system in the rural parts should not be achieved, especially in view of a commitment to one-man operation given by the Transport and General Workers Union.
• The only thing stopping the full introduction of o-m-o is delays at peak periods. Once faster methods of ticket issuing and cash collection have been perfected, there is no reason why the end of the two not be on report. crewed bus sh the horizon say Despite interest in mini midi buses for rural opera much of the operation of services must still be ca out using vehicles of up% of 43 seats because t vehicles are needed to he the peak period load workers and school childr But the committee acc that vehicles of this size their limitations in rural vice, because of their lei despite the favourable r tion of NBC staffs to batches of Bristol RE and land National buses deli'o over the past year.
During its look at NBC committee's sub-comm on transport looked at se' of the NBC subsidiaries ii tail and spent time with companies looking at operation.
And the result of thi. tailed look at NBC is a r§ which reflects an unu understanding of the sul by a Parliamentary bod this must be one of the reports published by the S Committee on Nationa. Industries.