Community Transport Association (CTA UK)

Lead Partner: Community Transport Association and Social Audit Network

Description

Community transport is an essential part of rural service delivery, delivering a range of services from neighbourly car schemes to multi-million pound services. Each community transport scheme is a local devised solution, working in complex operating environments, with uncertain funding regimes and exacting legislative requirements. There is little time to reflect on the wide benefits provided by the scheme and this weakens the case for secure financial support. The CTA believe they can address this problem. CTA is a UK wide charity and will deliver this programme with their partners, the Social Audit Network. They are aware that the real benefits of community transport are not fully recognised and they wish to redress this gap by detailed auditing of the social benefits. Regional clusters of community transport organisations in Scotland, N.I. Ireland and England will provide an opportunity for passengers to assess local transport projects through the use of social audit. The clusters will be selected through a competitive process. A series of sessions will be then be arranged with passengers to go through the process of the audit.

It is intended that the findings of this process will inform the strategic direction of CTA and will be used to influence the expenditure on community transport by local authorities.