Putting the (mini back in bus
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TWENTY YEARS ago the term "silent service", traditionally applied to the Royal Navy, was at least as appropriate to the denizens of Higher Civil Service.
The need to serve political masters of all shades of opinion rightly debars them from expressing opinions on those very policy areas in which they are most knowledgeable. They must be prepared to nationalise an industry and, a few years later, to denationalise it, with equal vigour and efficiency.
So understandably they normally keep their heads down in public. And traditionally they would maintain their silence even after retirement, often retreating to their Oxbridge colleges for the remainder of their lives.
How different things are today. Sir Douglas Wass, former Head of the whole Civil Service, gives the BBC Reith lectures. In these he criticises many aspects of the way in which Britain is governed, thereby (it is rumoured) so upsetting the Prime Minister as to deprive himself of the traditional peerage.
Sir Frank Cooper, former top Ministry of Defence bureaucrat, says in public that Cruise missiles should be denuclearised. His opposite number at the DHSS, Sir Patrick Nairne, seemed last month to be on all TV channels simultaneously in support of the campaign for more openness in Government — the ultimate heresy in Whitehall. And there are many other examples.
There is obviously a certain pleasure to be obtained from expressing in public opinions which have had to be supressed throughout a working lifetime. The narrow social and educational origins of most top civil servants mean that their views are not those of the common man. But they shed light into areas of the Government machine which have traditionally been kept in the shadows.
An industry like road transport, so heavily dependent on Government regulation, and fin the case of passenger transport) financial support, must welcome this openness. However, it is one thing for excivil servants to snipe from the safety of retirement. It requires more nerve to come out of the trenches while still serving. Yet that is what Peter Lazarus, the DTp's top civil servant, did last month, when he addressed the Chartered Institute of Transport on "Government and the community in the transport field". Before an audience which included some of the most knowledgable people from all modes he outlined the history of Government involvement in transport since 1840.
His prepared paper understandably skirted round some of the more sensitive subjects of recent transport history. For example, Mrs Castle's 1968 Act quantity licensing provisions were "not implemented, and have since been repealed"; there was no hint that almost without exception DTp Civil Servants thought them unworkable. And recent privatisation measures — the NFC, and Associated British Ports — were presented as part of a continuing shift between the public and private sector which traditionally went backwards and forwards. He did not touch on the irony of a Conservative Government renationalising London Transport 15 years after a Labour Government had denationalised it!
It was a masterly demonstration of skating on thin ice. Nevertheless, by looking at the patterns left by the skates it is possible to detect certain underlying attitudes. And busmen will not find one of the patterns very attractive.
As was only to be expected, in his remarks about the correct level of subsidy for public transport Mr Lazarus remained strictly neutral. He merely listed the topic as among those on which there was a continuing debate.
However, he also included among the long-term problems likely to continue to concern the DTp "the necessity of providing means of transport for those without access to a private car".
Those critical of the Department's attitude towards public transport might sardonically affect relief that the problem is at last recognised in Marsham Street. And certainly there is a vital need to cater for these people. It is arguable that the introduction of pensioners' bus passes has brought more happiness into old people's lives than any other single measure since the introduction of the State Pension over 70 years ago.
But the wording used by Mr Lazarus makes it clear that the Department regards public passenger transport as a sort of safety net, needed only to catch people too old, too young, too poor, too disabled (or perhaps too lazy) to drive a car.
There is not even a hint of recognition of the positive aspects of public transport. Its ability to reduce urban congestion, save energy or protect the environment is totally ignored.
Already the effects of this attitude are easily detectable. Outside tourist areas, to ride on an urban bus in off-peak hours is to come face-to-face with the under-privileged en masse. Rural buses only differ in that services are so sparse that most of the under-privileged have either moved to the towns or given up travelling.
Britain is almost the only country in Western Europe which regards public transport as a sort of mobile dustbin. Mo: foreign cities have an urban roE network incomparably better than that in british cities, and cE ownership is at least as high. Yi Governments and municipaliti( still consider it beneficial to provide high quality public transport.
And this is used by all sector: of society. Obviously the underprivileged are well represented, but the presence a high proportion of prosperou travellers avoids the feeling of trip down Skid Row so often experienced on British buses.
Once the bus comes to be something only used by the poor it will be doomed. Those who doubt this should look at the public outcry by the relatively well-heeled at proposed cuts in the NHS. If most people were BUPA members the cuts would have gone ahead.
If its standards are not to continue to decline, public transport needs equally solid support by the articulate. But it will not be forthcoming if its or users are the poorer sections o the community. In its commendable, if belated, PR campaign the Bus and Coach Council should stress that the bus can serve the whole of society — if society, as represented by the DTp, will I it.