Dear Sir/Madam
In these unprecedented times Leicestershire County Council is fully aware of the impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on our local bus services and taxi market with significantly reduced passenger patronage following advice from government agencies and the closure or partial closure of schools.
We want to help where we can by clarifying our position and the support we can offer. We are aware that operators of all sizes have been requesting clarification on this matter and we thank you for your patience while we have been reviewing the government guidance and consider appropriate financial support.
We hope that the measures we will take will provide you with some financial stability in the short term whilst we work through Coronavirus pandemic together.
We do, however, ask that your resources are used flexibly to ensure critical services can be delivered effectively where required.
Our proposals and intended approach are as follows:
Local bus services operators in receipt of concessionary travel reimbursement payments
PAYMENTS
· MARCH: An ENCTS reimbursement payment for March based on the submitted passenger numbers for March 2019. This payment will be made by the end of April 2020 on receipt of March data (subject to data being received from the operator).
· APRIL, MAY, JUNE: We will then make monthly payments for April, May and June 2020 based on the 2019 reimbursements for those months on receipt of the patronage data as normal.
· Please continue to submit monthly data as normal.
Contracted local bus services
· The council will maintain contract prices at their current pre-Covid-19 levels where any reduction in timetables for local contracted bus services are made. Any timetable reductions should be agreed with the council and be kept under review. It is vital that appropriate service levels for key workers, most particularly to hospitals, and for more vulnerable users are maintained ensuring a level of frequency to maintain safe distancing.
· Where a contracted local bus service continues unchanged (because it is already of limited, infrequent nature), we may consider on a case by case basis either a price change or temporary reversion to a minimum cost contract.
· Invoicing of minimum cost contracted services will continue unchanged as the revenue loss will be automatically accounted for at the point of invoice.
PAYMENTS
· MARCH: Please submit your invoices and monitoring forms in the normal way, covering the whole of March, minus any normal deductions for revenue etc.
· APRIL- JUNE 2020: Please continue to submit invoices and monitoring forms in the normal way on a monthly basis.
· Invoices for each month will be accepted at their normal time:
o Invoices for April will be accepted after Thursday 30th April 2020
o Invoices for May will be accepted after Friday 29th May 2020
o Invoices for June will be accepted after Tuesday 30th June 2020.
In return for the above financial support you need to agree to act on an “open book basis” and make cost data available to LCC during this period. The Council expects you to act with best endeavours to reduce costs and access whatever additional support measures for businesses the Government has put in place for which you are eligible as a business and that you act with integrity and not seek to make profits on elements of a contract that are undelivered during this period.
This will require you to maintain records that will allow reconciliations to be undertaken at an appropriate point in the future (potentially after 3 months although this will be reviewed depending on how long the Government imposed measures continue for). This will then enable monies to be clawed back by the Council where the funding we have provided is also covered by funding received from other sources and/or costs have been saved as service levels have reduced.
You will also be aware that the Government has recently agreed to the introduction of a Covid-19 Bus Services Support Grant (CBSSG) to support Local Bus Services further during this difficult period. The funding is available to both Local Authorities and Bus Operators and is additional to the LCC financial support outlined above.
In order to determine how best this funding can be utilised to further support your contracted services with the council, avoid any double funding from this grant and clarify service levels, please can you provide the council with the following for each of your contracted services with us: -
· The current level of service being provided as a consequence of Covid‑19.
· Evidence of any revenue shortfall after taking into account the continued financial support at pre-Covid-19 levels.
· Services you will be claiming separately from the operator CBSSG.
Please send this information to
ptps@leics.gov.uk at your earliest convenience.
Once determined, we will advise Government accordingly on how the Council’s CBSSG allocation is being utilised.
Mainstream school bus contract services - (beginning with the letter “S”)
· Where contracts are continuing to run to support the transport of vulnerable or keyworker children, please continue to operate as normal and submit invoices in the normal way on a monthly basis.
· Where contracts are no longer running, please submit your invoices at 100% of the normal contracted rate based on the number of days you were due to operate that month.
· LCC Student Season Tickets – any tickets purchased will be paid for the spring and summer term to cover any possible travel by children of key workers or any return to school, i.e. we are not seeking a credit for passes not used.
· Commercial school specials – any tickets purchased will be paid for the spring and summer term to cover any possible travel by children of key workers or any return to school, i.e. we are not seeking a credit for passes not used.
· If at any time we need to re-instate the contract that is currently non-operational then you must be available to do this or alternatively you need to be available for delivery of an alternative type of service. Revised payments may be made by agreement with LCC if the alternative requirements are seen to require additional time or mileage to deliver.
PAYMENTS
· MARCH: If you haven’t already, please submit your invoices for March based on the number of days you were contracted to do, minus any normal deductions that occurred prior to the school closing. If you have already submitted your invoice for March as you were no longer providing transport, please add the extra days to your April invoice, do not send an additional invoice for the March.
· APRIL TO JULY: Please submit your invoices for each month (not all at once) based on the number of days you were contracted to do.
· April’s invoices should exclude the Easter holidays unless you were otherwise contracted to fulfil journeys on those days. The same applies for bank holidays 08/05/20 and 25/05/20) and May half term.
· Invoices for each month will be accepted at their normal time:
o Invoices for April will be accepted after Thursday 30th April 2020
o Invoices for May will be accepted after Friday 29th May 2020
o Invoices for June will be accepted after Tuesday 30th June 2020
o Invoices for July will be accepted after terms or contract ends around 10th July 2020
In return for the above financial support you need to agree to act on an “open book basis” and make cost data available to LCC during this period. The Council expects you to act with best endeavours to reduce costs and access whatever additional support measures for businesses the Government has put in place for which you are eligible as a business and that you act with integrity and not seek to make profits on elements of a contract that are undelivered during this period.
This will require you to maintain records that will allow reconciliations to be undertaken at an appropriate point in the future (potentially after 3 months although this will be reviewed depending on how long the Government imposed measures continue for). This will then enable monies to be clawed back by the Council where the funding we have provided is also covered by funding received from other sources and/or costs have been saved as service levels have reduced.
Mainstream school taxi contract services (beginning with the letter “S”),
SEN taxi school contract services (beginning with “00” or “PTU00”) and
Social care taxi contract services (beginning with the number ”5”)
· Where mainstream, SEN and social care contract services delivered by taxis are continuing to operate as normal taxi operators will be paid in full, please submit invoices in the normal way on a monthly basis.
· Where mainstream and SEN school transport and social care transport services have been suspended we will be in contact with you over the next few days with the arrangements.
Demand Responsive Taxis (DRTs)
· Demand Responsive Services will continue to operate as normal and be paid on use as per the contractual arrangements. Please continue to submit invoices and monitoring forms in the normal way on a monthly basis.
We hope that the above measures will provide you with some financial stability in the short term whilst we work through Coronavirus pandemic together.
Finally, on behalf of Leicestershire County Council, we would like to thank you for all your efforts during this very difficult time for the whole country and especially for those operators who have already offered use of their resources in a flexible manner.
If you have any further questions.
LBS concessionary travel reimbursement
Contract invoices
Payment enquiries
to@leics.gov.ukMainstream transport contract enquiries
mainstreamtransport@leics.gov.ukSEN transport contract enquires
sentransport@leics.gov.ukSocial care transport contract enquiries
socialcare@leics.gov.ukLBS contract and Covid-19 Bus Services Support Grant (CBSSG)enquiries
ptps@leics.gov.ukDemand Responsive Transport enquiries
ptps@leics.gov.uk Information on the various measures the Government has put in place can be found on the link below.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ion-scheme Kind Regards,
Safe & Sustainable Travel Team
Leicestershire County Council