§ Mr. KidneyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how he plans to evaluate the effectiveness of the current three year spending programme on rural transport services. [112513]
§ Mr. HillThe current three year spending programme on rural transport includes the Rural Bus Subsidy Grant, the Rural Bus Challenge Fund, the Rural Transport Partnership Scheme and the Rural Transport Development Fund.
We are monitoring on an annual basis the impact of the Rural Bus Subsidy Grant. This analysis has shown that in the first year over 1,800 new or improved services were introduced in England. Monitoring of Rural Bus Challenge projects is based on an analysis of annual progress and end of project reports.
The Rural Transport Partnership scheme and the Rural Transport Development Fund are administered by the Countryside Agency on the Department's behalf. The Countryside Agency will be evaluating these schemes during 2000–2001.