Ms Anne Graham:

We are an authority that makes the decisions on fares based on the funding available to us. We are responsible for the structure of those fares but we do not have the contracts in place for the ticketing equipment used and managed directly by the operators, which has been the case for many years. We put a structure on top of that.

The Leap card integrates the fares system but we do not own the ticketing equipment that the operators use. We are changing that as part of next-generation ticketing in that we will own the ticketing equipment on the bus and will have a much more centralised structure so that we can be held to account much more closely in terms of the delivery of that infrastructure and anything associated with that. When we are at a remove and the only mechanism we have is to encourage our operators to get their contractors to deliver on our behalf, that is not the easiest position to be in when delivering on behalf of the State.