The Department does not know how it will measure local transport authorities’ performance on bus services. Bus service performance varies significantly across the country, yet the Department does not have the data it needs to identify under-performing areas and help them improve. Such measures might include reliability, affordability, frequency or the number of bus services. Later this year, the Department plans to pilot an outcomes framework which will specify potential metrics for each local transport authority. This will help the Department to understand performance and intervene where necessary, though it has yet to determine what such intervention might look like in practice. The Department also does not have the information it needs to gain a good understanding of what its bus funding has achieved overall. While minimising unnecessary data requests, the Department still has a responsibility to collect the right data to know whether its support and funding to the sector achieve its intended outcomes. recommendation a. The Department should, within a year, finalise a basket of measures and explain how it will use an outcomes framework to hold local transport authorities to account for their performance on bus services and support those performing less well. b. The Department should develop a monitoring and evaluation plan for its portfolio of bus improvement interventions.