Mayor's bus takeover £100m more than expected
LDRSAuditors have discovered a mayor's plan to take control of a region's buses will cost £104.9m more than expected.
An independent assurance report from accountants Grant Thornton warned the North East mayoral authority that its bus franchising plan had contained a financial error which excluded staffing costs over 30 years.
But the auditors said the additional expenditure did not change their conclusion that the scheme is affordable.
A spokesperson for the mayoral authority maintained the scheme was "financial viable, provides better value for money and is the best option for the future of the region's bus network".
Overall, it is now estimated that £113m of public money would need to be delivered over the first decade of a bus franchising system, rising to a total of £437.8m over 30 years.
The spokesperson described the extra staffing costs as merely a "small fraction" of the vast sums involved in the franchising calculations, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The mayor's office said: "The independent assurance report agrees the total investment needed for franchising remains affordable and within the available funding envelope of the integrated settlement, alongside other potential funding options identified in the analysis.
"This includes all additional staffing costs required to deliver franchising, which on their own represent a small fraction of the overall cost of the whole bus service."
At a meeting of the mayoral authority's audit and standards committee on Tuesday, chair Dave Willis suggested a workshop is held later this year at which the bus franchising plans can be scrutinised in detail.
Should the mayor's plan proceed as planned, the first set of "Angel Network" buses would start operating in September 2029.
