From England to the Whole UK: Expanding the Bus Safety Transparency Campaign

When I began submitting Freedom of Information requests into bus safety governance and transparency, the focus was England.

That made sense. Bus franchising is expanding across England, and new Combined Authorities are taking on increasing responsibility for planning and managing local bus networks.

But as responses started to come in, it became clear that this issue cannot be understood in isolation.

To understand where England is going, we need to understand how the rest of the UK already manages bus governance, safety oversight and transparency.

So this week the campaign has expanded across all four nations of the United Kingdom.

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Why look beyond England?

Bus services across the UK operate under four very different governance models.

England is rebuilding public control through franchising after decades of deregulation.

Scotland allows municipal bus companies and has introduced new franchising powers.

Wales is moving towards a nationally planned and publicly controlled bus network.

Northern Ireland never deregulated buses at all and operates a fully publicly owned system.

If we want to understand what “good” governance and transparency look like, we need to compare these systems properly.

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What the campaign is asking

The new requests sent to authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ask the same core questions already being asked across England:

• Who oversees bus passenger safety?
• What safety data is collected?
• How are incidents and risks reviewed?
• Which committees or governance bodies discuss bus safety?
• What information is published for the public?

This isn’t about criticising any particular authority. It’s about building a clear and evidence-based picture of how safety governance works across the UK.

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Why this comparison matters

Passengers assume that someone is: • Monitoring safety
• Reviewing incidents and trends
• Holding operators to account
• Being transparent about performance

But the early responses from England have already shown that governance and transparency vary significantly depending on where you live.

Expanding the campaign across the UK will help answer a bigger question:

Is bus safety oversight consistent across the UK — or does it depend on geography and governance model?

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The next phase begins

Freedom of Information requests have now been submitted to:

• Scottish Government
• Strathclyde Partnership for Transport
• City of Edinburgh Council
• Transport for Wales
• Welsh Government
• Department for Infrastructure Northern Ireland
• Translink

This marks the start of the next phase of the campaign.

Over the coming months, responses from across the UK will begin to build a national picture of bus safety governance and transparency.

More updates soon.