Punishing the voiceless: How  means testing will affect free bus travel for pensioners

By Steve Doughty for the Daily Mail
Updated: 03:30 EST, 7 August 2009

Concessionary bus travel looks set to be cut back following a General Election

Concessionary bus travel looks set to be cut back following a General Election

On average, it costs the taxpayer just under £100 a year to pay for a pensioner's free bus travel.

That is far less than a £142.50 television licence for someone over 75, or over-60s winter fuel payments of £125 to £400.

But concessionary bus travel looks certain to be severely cut back following a General Election.

One reason is that the rules load the costs on to councils with big bus stations and many connecting services, particularly if they are close to tourist areas, and they are piling on pressure for change.

Among them are Preston, with routes to resorts like Blackpool and Southport, which says it had a £1.4million shortfall last year - the equivalent of a 16 per cent council tax rise.

Chesterfield, close to the Peak District, says it is down by £1.6million, equivalent to 37 per cent on council tax bills, and that it is having to lay off 45 staff.

Exeter, Brighton, Harrogate, Cambridge and Norwich all claim to be down by more than £1million last year. All told, town halls say they have lost £30million on free bus passes that were not supposed to put any burden on the council tax payer.

Local authorities also resent giving money to bus companies. In the words of one official yesterday: 'They are creaming us.' 

Many older people tell stories of using their bus passes for short journeys - but finding that drivers log them as tickets to the end of the route.

The Local Government Association report that raised the threat of means testing on Wednesday was particularly critical that bus companies cannot properly account for the money they claim.

Nevertheless the enthusiasm among councils for a crackdown on bus passes left a nasty taste with many older people.

Free bus passes are available to 11 million elderly people. If means testing were introduced and passes limited to those who are officially considered poor, fewer than three million would be likely to qualify.

The losers would, unsurprisingly, be furious. They would point out that, during the years when council taxes were rising rapidly, town halls did not show much concern that pensioners, who often live in bigger houses and on small fixed incomes, were bearing a disproportionate share of the pain.

Nor have they shown any reluctance to cut back on care services for older people who need help like meals on wheels or assistance with washing and personal grooming, or with housework or shopping.

 

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Some 400,000 older people have lost free care at home over the past three years, and in private council chiefs are open about the reason. It is politically less damaging to cut services to comparatively voiceless older people than it is to close swimming pools or sack staff.

There is also the embarrassing fact that councils have been giving money away to causes that look less deserving than bus companies.

Three of the town halls that have complained they lost more than £1 million each on bus passes lost rather more than that gambling their reserves in bankrupt Icelandic banks last autumn.

Exeter lost £5million, Cambridge lost £9million, Nottingham lost £41.6million.

In all, the town hall savings thrown away in the disastrous punt on Iceland would have paid for all free pensioner bus travel for a year.