Chinahand Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 The buses cost about £14 million a year to run. A portion of that provides free travel for OAPs and School kids. The other users pay about £4.5 million in bus fares and tax payers pay £9.5 million. A very rough approximation is that tax payers = normal users - ie not kids not retirees (yes I know retirees pay tax, but not all tax payers use the buses etc etc) - I think around 30,000 people. It isn't totally right, but it's not far off. So the (approximately) tax payers basically pay £400 quid a year for the buses. That is what they have to pay to have the service AND have OAPs and kids free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 Liar. They pay to subsidise free travel for OAPs and Schoolkids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoTail Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 £400pa sounds like a lot to me to run a bus service. Do we know the cost per head of buses in other jurisdictions? The question still remains - Can we afford it? If there is no money then the service will have to be shut down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 The buses cost about £14 million a year to run. A portion of that provides free travel for OAPs and School kids. The other users pay about £4.5 million in bus fares and tax payers pay £9.5 million. A very rough approximation is that tax payers = normal users - ie not kids not retirees (yes I know retirees pay tax, but not all tax payers use the buses etc etc) - I think around 30,000 people. It isn't totally right, but it's not far off. So the (approximately) tax payers basically pay £400 quid a year for the buses. That is what they have to pay to have the service AND have OAPs and kids free. Nice math, but you should express your figure of £400 taking into account the proportion of government revenue generated from income tax, you'll end up closer to £110. http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/treasury/budget/2012/pinkbook1213.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 The buses cost about £14 million a year to run. A portion of that provides free travel for OAPs and School kids. The other users pay about £4.5 million in bus fares and tax payers pay £9.5 million. A very rough approximation is that tax payers = normal users - ie not kids not retirees (yes I know retirees pay tax, but not all tax payers use the buses etc etc) - I think around 30,000 people. It isn't totally right, but it's not far off. So the (approximately) tax payers basically pay £400 quid a year for the buses. That is what they have to pay to have the service AND have OAPs and kids free. Nice math, but you should express your figure of £400 taking into account the proportion of government revenue generated from income tax, you'll end up closer to £110. http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/treasury/budget/2012/pinkbook1213.pdf Sorry, brain's going moldy, I would ignore the above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScotsAlan Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 The railways should cost nothing. They could be given to a preservation society on condition they keep x amount of skilled people employed. The preservation people would probably be more skilled in generating tourist revenue than the Government are. But until a breakdown of costs is published we should try not to jump to conclusions. I suspect this loss has been published as propaganda. Given the recent bus driver dispute etc. They want everyone to blame the drivers. I also suspect this is a smokescreen. Tell people about the small losses to wind them up.... Then hide the real losses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
censorship Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 This sort of story will be reall yhelpful when they announce the privatisation of the bus service Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.K. Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 I find it slightly amusing that the transport subsidy was stated by the gov to be £102 pppa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 I find it slightly amusing that the transport subsidy was stated by the gov to be £102 pppa. 80,000 x 102 = ~ 8 million, so taking (maybe) NI & income tax & VAT on fuel etc. out of the equation (comes back to government) it looks more-or-less correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScotsAlan Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 I find it slightly amusing that the transport subsidy was stated by the gov to be £102 pppa. 80,000 x 102 = ~ 8 million, so taking (maybe) NI & income tax & VAT on fuel etc. out of the equation (comes back to government) it looks more-or-less correct. More expensive per person than the Royals cost then :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Mexico Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 The buses cost about £14 million a year to run. A portion of that provides free travel for OAPs and School kids. The other users pay about £4.5 million in bus fares and tax payers pay £9.5 million. A very rough approximation is that tax payers = normal users - ie not kids not retirees (yes I know retirees pay tax, but not all tax payers use the buses etc etc) - I think around 30,000 people. It isn't totally right, but it's not far off. So the (approximately) tax payers basically pay £400 quid a year for the buses. That is what they have to pay to have the service AND have OAPs and kids free. Not true I'm afraid. If you look at the Government Accounts for 2012-13 you'll see that £14 million is the expenditure for all Public Transport. If you analyse what figures we do have the results are: Total Bus Expenditure = £7,863,126 less Income £3,268,415 = £4,594,711 [1] Total Rail Expenditure = 3,832,388 less Income £1,200,353 = £2,632,035 Total Overheads = £2,432,700 Of course the overheads need to be allocated out properly (I suspect that Rail takes more than strict pro-rata for example) and income may also be a bit confused (how is the revenue from Explorer Tickets allocated for example?). More important it doesn't take into account the capital costs and we all know that Longworth has form with muddying capital and revenue (though most capital costs seem to relate to Rail). But it gives some idea what is going on. So not all the £14 million is the 'cost of the buses' - it's not all cost there's revenue as well and it certainly not all buses. [1] This is presumably the figure that Teare referred to in his answer, but strictly speaking it's not just 'Operational' costs as it includes Engineering and Loan Charges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manxman1980 Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 The railways should cost nothing. They could be given to a preservation society on condition they keep x amount of skilled people employed. The preservation people would probably be more skilled in generating tourist revenue than the Government are. But until a breakdown of costs is published we should try not to jump to conclusions. I suspect this loss has been published as propaganda. Given the recent bus driver dispute etc. They want everyone to blame the drivers. I also suspect this is a smokescreen. Tell people about the small losses to wind them up.... Then hide the real losses. There is a push to increase volunteer support (on the steam railway at least) which should help with the upkeep costs of buildings etc (Castletown Station, Colby Level as examples). A big issue in handing over the railways to another organisation would be ensuring that a group could not asset strip. You also have the issue of maintenance of road crossings and bridges which would probably fall between the DOI and Railway. Neither are impossible to overcome but would need to be done carefully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Thomas Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 Figures presented in the Isle of Man Treasury Report on Public Broadcasting Subvention dated July 2012 provide figures for "the degree of funding provided for government, per head of population, based on the 2012/13 budget and a population of 84,497, in different areas". These figures are: Table 1: Comparative Subvention per head of population, excluding capital costs Costs £M Cost per head £ Public Transport 9.40 111 Manx National Heritage 3.88 46 Arts and Entertainment (inc Wildlife Park) 2.60 31 Sports and Recreation 2.44 29 Swimming Pools outside Douglas 1.56 18 Manx Radio 1.17 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey boy Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 So have I got this right? A few years ago I seem to remember a bit of fuss about the buses loosing £6m per year. Enter highly paid weni brought in to " run the service more commercially. Within months of his arrival over 70% of his workforce vote to & do go on strike at several strategic times including the busiest two weeks for tourist. Now the bus service loose over £9 million but it's OK because next year it will only be £5.6 million. One question. Why is this fucker still in a job? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jefferson Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 As much as I dislike the people who run our government, the prospect of privatisation makes me feel physically sick. It might cost taxpayers less in taxes, but it will cost taxpayers a heck of a lot more when they have to start paying for-profit companies for the services. "Privatization does not mean you take a public institution and give it to some nice person. It means you take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable tyranny. Public institutions have many side benefits. For one thing they may purposely run at a loss. They're not out for profit. They may purposely run at a loss because of the side benefits. So, for example if a public steel industry runs at a loss it's providing cheap steel to other industries. Maybe that's a good thing. Public institutions can have a counter cyclic property. So that means that they can maintain employment in periods of recession, which increases demand, which helps you to get out of recession. Private companies can't do that in a recession. Throw out the work force because that's the way you make money." - Noam Chomsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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