Free bus 'discrimination' claim

Many elderly and disabled people are missing out on free bus travel scheme because they are so frail, a charity has warned.

The Community Transport Association (CTA) said public bus services covered by the concessionary fares scheme were often unsuitable or too inaccessible.

It called on the Scottish Government to include services like dial-a-bus in the free travel scheme. A government spokesman said the situation would be reviewed next year. But the spokesman said it was too early to say what changes might be made.

The concessionary fares scheme, introduced last year, allows all pensioners and disabled people to travel free of charge on buses across Scotland.

But the CTA said the most vulnerable people are discriminated against because they are forced to pay for essential bus journeys to shops, hospitals and health appointments. The group's Scottish director, John MacDonald, said the scheme as it stood was unjust.

He said: "At present, the concessionary fares scheme is seriously flawed because it only extends to conventional bus transport, not to the community services run mainly by voluntary groups, which provide transport to older or disabled people who can't walk to their bus stop. "As a result, Scotland's oldest, frailest, and quite often poorest people are forced to pay for their essential travel while the rest of Scotland's older population enjoy the benefits of free bus travel throughout the country."

The free travel scheme has issued more than 750,000 entitlement cards to people who are over the age of 60 or disabled. The government spent £163m on the concessionary travel scheme last year. The CTA claimed it would cost a further £5m to extend the programme to community transport.

It estimates that 2.6 million journeys are supplied by the network of community and voluntary transport providers at an average cost of £4.

Mr MacDonald added: "We believe expansion of the scheme would be an eminently affordable measure for the Scottish Government to take, while making a huge difference to the weekly budget of Scotland's disabled pensioners."

The CTA is the national charity representing voluntary sector transport operators in the UK. Volunteer drivers and supporters often help people from their homes onto a bus parked outside their door, take them to their destination, pick them up and help them back home. The group believes many thousands of older people in Scotland would lose their independence and be isolated in their homes without the volunteers