About this consultation and the consultation process
Consultation : Free bus travel for people resident in Scotland aged under 19
About this consultation and the consultation process
The Scottish Government intends to launch a new statutory national concessionary travel scheme providing free bus travel for young people resident in Scotland up to their 19th birthday (referred to as 'under 19s' or 'under 19' throughout the rest of this consultation). We anticipate that legislation to underpin the scheme would be required to be laid in Parliament in early 2021 and the scheme would come into effect later in 2021.
The purpose of this consultation is to set out the proposed arrangements for the new scheme and options for how the scheme operates. By providing us with your views, we can establish the most appropriate way to provide free travel for young people to meet their needs and requirements.
We hope that as many members of the public as possible will respond to this consultation. In particular we would like to hear the views of people who will be impacted by these proposals including children and young people, their parents and carers and people who work with children in a paid or voluntary capacity. We appreciate that some of the consultation questions are technical but their application to free bus travel could have direct impacts on numerous individuals and organisations. As such, we would encourage everyone to respond to any or all of those areas where you feel you have a contribution to make.
This consultation is not about the design or implementation of any other concessionary travel schemes. We are running a separate engagement with young people on the future of transport more broadly, seeking their views on how we tackle transport inequalities and move us towards a more sustainable and inclusive Scottish transport network.
Responding to this consultation
The consultation will run for six weeks and we are inviting responses by Monday 7 December.
Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation hub, Citizen Space.
You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the closing date of Monday 7 December.
If you are unable to respond using our consultation hub, please complete the Respondent Information Form and return to:
Email: Under19Consultation@transport.gov.scot
Post: Under 19 Consultation
Bus, Accessibility and Active Travel
Transport Scotland
Buchanan House
58 Port Dundas Road
Glasgow G4 0HF
Handling your response
If you respond using the consultation hub, you will be directed to the 'About You' page before submitting your response. Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are content for your response to be published. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.
All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.
If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form included at the end of this document.
To find out how we handle your personal data, please see our privacy policy: https://beta.gov.scot/privacy/
Next steps in the process
Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public at http://consult.gov.scot. If you use the consultation hub to respond, you can receive a copy of your response via email.
Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us prepare the free bus travel scheme for people resident in Scotland aged under 19. Responses will be published where we have been given permission to do so. An analysis report will also be made available.
Comments and complaints
If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to the contact address above or Under19Consultation@transport.gov.scot.
Scottish Government consultation process
Consultation is an essential part of the policymaking process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work.
You can find all our consultations online. Each consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a way for you to give us your views, either online, or by email or post.
Responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. We will publish a report of this analysis for every consultation. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:
- indicate the need for policy development or review
- inform the development of a particular policy
- help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals
- be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented
While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body.