BUS APPEALS BODY
| Introduction |
| How we work |
| Terms |
| Contact Details |
| Lord Hogg of Cumbernauld |
| Links |
| Annual Report 2009 |
Bus Appeals Body 2009 annual reportTo download this report using Internet Explorer, right click here and select "Save Target As..."
The Bus Appeals Body is a joint undertaking by Bus Users UK and the Confederation of Passenger Transport which revisits bus and scheduled coach passengers’ complaints in situations where the passenger has not been happy with the way the bus company has dealt with the situation. In such situations Bus Users UK tries to broker a solution with the bus company, and where this cannot be achieved for whatever reason it is escalated to the Bus Appeals Body. Most operators of scheduled bus and coach services in Britain are members of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, and agree to abide by Bus Appeals Body decision as part of their CPT membership. However it has no statutory remit. It deals with such cases in England and Wales, excluding London: London, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have statutory bus passenger representation. During 2009 Bus Users UK handled a total of 872 complaints, 488 in England and 384 in Wales, of which 80 were escalated to the Bus Appeals Body, 72 from England and eight from Wales. A new chairman was appointed in January 2009, following the sad death of Lord Hogg of Cumbernauld in November 2008. Lord Hogg had been chairman of BAB since 2000 and had been a genial and very fair chairman, with a good understanding of bus passenger issues. He took a commonsense view of appeals, but insisted on a high standard of debate. The Independent’s assessment of Lord Hogg as ‘scrupulously fair and with a subtle sense of humour’ reflects to perfection his approach to chairing BAB. The new chairman is Lord Snape of Wednesbury, who is proving equally fair and scrupulous. He has a good background in transport and understands passenger issues well. Throughout 2009 Dennis Flower has continued to represent the bus operators’ perspective and Stephen Morris for Bus Users UK has represented the passenger perspective. Most cases have been resolved easily and amicably, though some cases have required debate at the Body’s bimonthly meetings. Graham Sutton of CPT gave us secretarial and administrative support during 2009. It was a year in which there was a great deal of debate over bus passenger representation, and a year in which Passenger Focus had its rail passenger representation role extended to include bus passengers in England outside London. For 2009 this was in ‘shadow form’, with full representation to start in April 2010. Bus Appeals Body has welcomed Passenger Focus’s input this year. Though not formally a part of Bus Appeals Body, nonetheless Passenger Focus has been invited to send representatives to observe our meetings. During 2009 the Department for Transport consulted on the future of bus passenger complaints appeal handling and concluded that the Bus Appeals Body should continue to take the role of dealing with bus users’ escalated complaints. In preparation for that role, Bus Appeals Body issued a new booklet during 2009. At the same time Bus Users UK improved its own internal procedures for handling complaints and other issues and it has been agreed that Bus Users UK would take over the administration role for Bus Appeals Body from 1 February 2010. 2009 Cases Following a year when the number of cases referred to the Bus Appeals Body dropped to an all-time low, the number of cases increased again to 80 in 2009, which is nearer the norm. By mid-February 2010 five were still outstanding. As usual, the vast majority were found in favour of the appellant, 62 cases out of the 80, or 77.5%. One was a split decision, with fault found on both sides, and three could not be resolved due to operators not engaging with us. One of these was a coach booked by a ticket agency for a pop festival, and was really outside our remit. The appellant was warned we were not optimistic of gaining a result in that case. The others involved smaller operators which failed to engage with us but in both cases are now beginning to do so. One looks likely to be found in favour of the appellant, the other in favour of the operator, though with a reminder of their need to engage more readily with the BAB.
Issues dealt with Understandably reliability issues accounted for the largest number of cases. In the table below, the total number of issues is larger than the total number of cases as some involve more than one issue.
Issues dealt with by Bus Appeals Body, 2009
No of cases dealt with by Bus Appeals Body, 2005-2009
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
