Pyrrhic victory for Bromley Tories over Freedom Passes, says Lib Dem Cllr Adams

10.25.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 25th Sep 2008

LibDem ClockHouse Cllr Reg Adams forecasts that Bromley Council will end up paying more for its travel-loving over-60s

The "Freedom Pass" enables all London residents aged over 60 or registered disabled to travel for free on London's buses, underground and overground trains, trams and Docklands Light Railway. This scheme - which currently costs £216 million - is paid for by the 33 London Boroughs and administered by London Councils.

Hitherto, Bromley Borough's share of the total cost has been calculated on the basis of the number of Freedom Passes issued to Bromley residents; similarly for the other 32 Boroughs. Now that Freedom Passes work like Oyster cards, it was proposed by a cross-Party group of London Councillors that in future cost apportionment to the Boroughs should be based on actual passenger usage (presumably in terms of passenger-trips or passenger-miles).

BDO Stoy Hayward was commissioned to carry out a study and sure enough this study supported the proposed change, though it did recognise a huge flaw in this method of cost apportionment, namely that most overground railway stations are not yet equipped with card-readers Oyster Oyster cards Oystercards or Freedom Passes. Apparently, there is also significant under-recording of passenger usage on the DLR and Tramlink systems.

So, although the data capture on passenger usage works very well for Boroughs in north, east and west London (with lots of tube stations), there is at present a huge under-recording of passenger usage in Lewisham (with only two tube stations) and Bromley (with no tube stations at all). In the future, as more card-readers are installed at overground railway stations, data capture will improve.

In the end, the consultants recommended that the change in the method of apportionment should be phased-in over three years - 45% in the first year, 30% in the second year and 25% in the third year. The party leaders agreed to modify this phase-in to: 33%, 33%, 33%.

At the London Councils Meeting on this issue, Cllr Colin Smith (Con, Bromley) argued for rejection of the modified version and proposed adopting the consultants' 45:30:25 formula. The vote on his amendment was tied at 14-14, but the amendment was then lost on the Chairman's casting vote. Cllr Smith and two of his colleagues then voted against the 33:33:33 formula.

To go ahead with changing the method of cost apportionment, there would have to be unanimous agreement or resort to outside arbitration. Cllr Caroline Pidgeon (LibDem, Southwark) pointed out that arbitration would delay the process by around six months and would cost Bromley Council taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds. Evidently, Cllr Smith is keen to bring in the new method of costs apportionment sooner rather than later. In the end, he got his own way. Rather than spend time and money on arbitration, all the Boroughs agreed to the consultants' original recommendation of a 45:30:25 formula for phasing in the new method of funding over three years.

Cllr Smith and Bromley's Tories claim that adopting the new formula sooner rather than later will save Bromley taxpayers several thousands of pounds. They argue that under the old system Bromley was by far the biggest financier, paying 9% of the £216 million total cost - reflecting the fact that Bromley has a higher number of over-60s than any other London Borough.

The victory may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory! Many of Bromley's over-60s cover lots of passenger-miles on their bus, train and tram journeys up to Central London or Croydon or Lewisham or within the Borough itself. When the system of data capture at overground railway stations becomes more comprehensive, it may well turn out that Bromley has to make a much larger contribution to the costs of the "Freedom Pass" scheme to fund the needs of its travel-loving residents.