School bus runs in East Lothian remained fully funded through lockdown

East Lothian Council’s management team took the decision to pay 100 per cent of the  money agreed to provide transport services across all routes, despite the closure of schools in March.

An audit report revealed that supplier relief measures introduced by a working group to protect services provided by contractors saw most of the relief funding going to transport operators in respect of transport provision, including home to school transport and social work routes which were not being delivered.

It said: “The working group decisions were based on an assessment that the operators would struggle to survive without full payment of council contracts and that the council was very reliant on the operators being in place to provide services during the recovery phase.”

Scottish Government guidelines over supplier relief stipulated that operators should not make profits through the funding.

The audit report warned: “In paying 100 per cent of the value of contracted routes, the council may be contributing to a profit element and funding variable costs that are not being incurred for some operators.”

Councillor Kenny McLeod told a virtual audit and governance committee meeting: “For people to profiteer during this time does not look very good.”

However, Tom Reid, the council’s head of infrastructure, said that payments would be reviewed and any “claw back” would be pursued if needed.

He said: “We took the decision quickly with the money provided to protect infrastructure which provides transport and home to school, to ensure these companies survived and were still able to provide  services. We needed to step in quickly to support them.

“There will be a full appraisal and there may be claw back if it appeared anyone had been over resourced with the grants available.”

The report said that, as of this month, all contracted routes were fully operational except in social work, where less than half of the services had returned.