CT Grant Application – Guidance Notes

Below you will find more information about Community Transport and guidance notes for the sections of the grant application form.

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Community Transport information Grant application process Section One – Applicant Organisation Information  Section Two – Eligibility Checks  Section Three – funding details & Questionnaire Section Four – Supporting document and confirmation of statements  Section Five – Declaration 

Community Transport information

  • Every year in our region, thousands of people are supported by Community Transport (CT) staff and volunteers to stay independent, participate in their communities and access vital public services like doctors’ appointments, leisure and employment.

    Community Transport is about providing flexible and accessible community-led solutions in response to unmet local transport needs and can be the only means of transport for many our vulnerable and isolated residents – often older people, or those with disabilities. Using everything from minibuses to mobility scooters, typical services include voluntary car schemes, community bus services, school transport, hospital transport, dial-a-ride, wheels to work, shared local/day trips and group hire services. Most are demand-responsive, taking people from door to door, but a growing number are scheduled services along fixed routes where conventional bus services are unavailable.

    As Community Transport is always run for a social purpose and never for profit by charitable and community interest groups, it is often the most passionate, reliable, resilient, and accessible way of ensuring the broadest range of transport needs can be met.

  • Community Transport has enormous social and economic benefits to residents across our region. Its role in combating loneliness and social isolation, helping people remain independent and access vital service and engaging in their communities cannot be overstated. Through use of community transport, tens of thousands of individuals can access the transport they need, regardless of their location and circumstances.

  • The West of England Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) supports community transport with grant funding to operators and, for continuing this financial year (2025-2026), by providing concessionary reimbursement to operators using pre-covid usage figures. Pre-covid data is used to ensure certainty in the concessionary budget and to provide financial stability to operators in recognition of the fact that majority of those using Community Transport were hard hit by behavioural changes associated with the pandemic and were unlikely to fully return to using public transport services.

Grant application process

In the aftermath of the pandemic, rules around applications had been relaxed and the focus for the Combined Authority has been to ensure that services remain viable, stable, resilient, and sustainable. The impact from the pandemic remains but there are promising signs with some operators already exceeding pro-pandemic figures. It is therefore right to re-assess and re-evaluate current services and provisions. This will ensure services are fit for purpose in providing value for money at the same time offering operators with appropriate funding for the future.

The MCA is of the view that this guidance will be of assistance to operators completing the grant application form for the 2025-26 funding cycle.

Operators should submit their completed application via the Travelwest web form on Monday the 6th January 2025 by 23:59. Where an operator is unable to complete the online application version, please download and complete the PDF version which should reach the MCA no later than the 6th January.

This guidance provides a set of guidelines on how to complete the grant application form. Submitted applications to be assess by a panel of two Mayoral Combined Authority officers. These officers will then make recommendations to the senior leadership, who in turns will follow the internal process in ensuring that the appropriate authorisations, sign- offs and sealing is obtained. Operators to note that decisions on funding amount will only be communicated following the conclusions of the on-going discussion on transport levy with the Unitary Authority partners. This process is anticipated to be finalised by end of January 2025 with operators being notified by as soon as practically possible after this date.

Section One – Applicant Organisation Information 

This information will provide the Combined Authority with a main point of contact within the community transport organisation, with whom communication will be maintained as we work together to monitor services and improve delivery.

As part of our due diligence, the information provided in this will be checked against the information held by Companies House or the Charity Commission to validate operator credentials.

Section Two – Eligibility Checks 

It is important that operators are meeting certain aspects of the eligibility criteria listed in this section of the application. Of course, not all criteria will apply to your organisation, but we hope you can answer as best you can. There may be scope for some flexibility if an operator is unable to (immediately) meet certain criteria. Should flexibility be required we can work together on a monitoring plan to help you achieve the desired eligibility criteria. This tick-box exercise will give us a better understanding of how your organisation operates, and the services you are hoping to deliver with the funding we provide. To this end, we ask that you please be as honest as possible. We expect some CT operators will not be able to tick all boxes, so we invite you to briefly explain why in the text box below.   

Operators within the NHS, statutory bodies and for-profit organisations are excluded, as these organisations are generally funded through other commissioning bodies. Our grants are to be used for the sole purpose of providing Community Transport, not for health or social care provision. Nonetheless, we still acknowledge and greatly support the fact health and social care sees huge benefits from good Community Transport. Fundamentally, unitary authorities provide transport levy funding to the Combined Authority, of which some funding is ringfenced for Community Transport.

Unitary authorities (not the Mayoral Combined Authority) have their own internal budgets to support health and social care which falls outside of our remit. Organisations whose primary focus is not to provide transport may have the advantage of being able to apply for health and social care grants. As you can understand, we want to avoid duplicating transport funding to organisations already receiving health and social care funding. We will not support activities that stray too far away from being definable as ‘transport’.  

Section Three – funding details & Questionnaire

Actual and target figures 

As with 2024/25 grant application form, we ask operators for details of their passenger numbers/hires, resources/assets, and membership figures etc. This information helps us understand your current provisions, performance and capability as well as giving us a baseline to compare against ongoing monthly monitoring forms. If your passenger figures drop from your baseline by a considerable margin during the grant funding period, as part of the performance management obligation, the MCA may get in contact to discuss an improve plan, where this is not possible, funding might be adjusted. Conversely, where passenger figures expand considerably from the baseline, the MCA may consider providing additional support subject to affordability. An example of this would be if you faced capacity issues due to high demand.

The target figures should be achievable within the grant funding cycle as historic targets were always aspirations with fewer operators actually achieving those set targets. For certain operators, the MCA does not expect a target figure where operation only covers a small area with membership unlikely to expand. For these organisations, operators can leave this category blank or just put ‘actual’ figure again. For some larger CT organisations, it is the MCA’s hope there is ambition to set a target for expansion, particularly where operation is still lagging at pre-covid patronage.

Questionnaire 

Step 7 of the form (part of section 3) focuses on collecting some qualitative information around how your organisation operates. The MCA ask that operators answer as concisely as possible and should expand on their answers on an attached document where necessary. This section presents an opportunity for operators to explain what they provide, why they are an excellent CT operator, their future aims, the challenges they face, among other pieces of important information.

To summarise (in no order), some of the key factors that will be decisive in determining the amount funded include, but are not limited to:

  • Financial details 
  • Geographical/demographic coverage 
  • Registered membership and cost 
  • Historical trips/hires 
  • Days and hours of operation 
  • Fleet size/resources 
  • Accessibility and high concessionary usage 
  • Promotion and advertising 
  • A robust safeguarding and equal opportunity policy 

Our officers will form an assessment panel to analyse your applications using an evaluation formular which will take the above factors into consideration. For auditing purposes, it is important for the Combined Authority to be able to demonstrate that money is being spent correctly. Auditors would not know what services the operator is expected to provide, other than those listed on the application form.

Section Four – Supporting document and confirmation of statements 

As above in section 3, for audit purposes the Combined Authority must provide a record of evidence used in decision making and to show due diligence. These supporting documents will provide evidence towards that objective.

As Community Transport often caters for the most vulnerable residents in the region, the Combined Authority must be satisfied that grants are awarded to organisations working in the best interest and welfare of residents and communities in the region. For this reason, the MCA have requested that operators provide copies of their safeguarding and equal opportunities policies, as well as confirming that they adhere to additional list of important policies.

If any of these policies are not maintained, the MCA will require a valid explanation as to why this is the case. Where such an explanation is deemed invalid, any grant award offer will be contingent on the operator ensuring that the defective and or missing policy/policies and implemented.

Lastly, for the first time since the Community Transport function was transferred to the Mayoral Combined Authority, the Grant Management and Assurance (GM&A) team will conduct credit check on all operators as part of their due diligent obligations. Operators must consent for this process to take as any offers will be subject to satisfactory credit and other checks the GM&A deemed appropriate.

Section Five – Declaration 

Operators must agree to the declaration of accuracy. A fraudulent application would result in termination of the agreement and cessation of funding, as well as potential action to recoup any monies paid. This could also result in criminal prosecution if an operator was negligent as to the accuracy of the information provided. Operators must ensure that information supplied is accurate or as near accurate as reasonably possible. Sanctions will be spelt out in the grant conditions document attached to the grant award offer.