New Department for Transport guidance tells bus enforcement officers to keep every fixed penalty they issue and spend it on more enforcement. Twice in the same document, it insists that is not about raising revenue.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
In short. On 19 October 2026 the Department for Transport published statutory guidance on enforcing new bus byelaws under sections 28 and 29 of the Bus Services Act 2025 [1], the first time these powers have extended to every local transport authority in England, including combined authorities [2]. Under "Approach to enforcement" the guidance says "in no circumstances should enforcement be considered a means to raise revenue", and under "Revenue from FPNs" it repeats that "enforcement activity should never be considered as a way to generate income" [2]. The same section then tells enforcing authorities to "retain penalty receipts from all FPNs issued" and spend them on "measures to improve local transport, this could include spending on enforcement of byelaws" [2]. Separately, the guidance lets authorities skip the police-administered Community Safety Accreditation Scheme and instead certify to themselves that they meet an equivalent standard [2]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Combined authorities have not been able to make bus byelaws until now. The guidance explains why: "the existing powers allowing local authorities to put in place bus byelaws did not apply to combined authorities", so enforcement against rowdy, threatening or alcohol-fuelled behaviour on buses varied depending on who ran the local network [2]. Sections 28 and 29 of the Bus Services Act 2025 close that gap, inserting new sections 144A to 144E into the Transport Act 2000 for every local transport authority in England and equivalent provisions into the Greater London Authority Act 1999 for Transport for London [3]. The Act gives the Secretary of State power to issue guidance on how the new fixed penalty notices should be used, and says local transport authorities and their enforcement officers "must have regard to" it [3]. This guidance is that document, published the same day it was found by this site. Two passages in it do not sit well together.
The claims, tested
| The claim | What we found | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "In no circumstances should enforcement be considered a means to raise revenue", and, separately, "enforcement activity should never be considered as a way to generate income" [2] | The same guidance, under the heading "Revenue from FPNs", instructs enforcing authorities to "retain penalty receipts from all FPNs issued" and says those receipts "should be spent on measures to improve local transport, this could include spending on enforcement of byelaws or public education" [2]. The Bus Services Act 2025 itself sets a £100 cap on each fixed penalty but says nothing about how the money raised must or may be used, and imposes no duty on any authority to publish how much it collects or how it is spent [3] | The guidance's own anti-revenue assurance has no external check behind it; the body that decides when to fine people also keeps the proceeds and can spend them on issuing more fines |
| Enforcing authorities "do not have to gain CSAS accreditation in order to enforce byelaws", but "must ensure that they are mirroring the checks and balances in the CSAS accreditation and be satisfied that the following requirements have been met" [2] | The Community Safety Accreditation Scheme the guidance treats as optional is a statutory scheme a chief officer of police "may... establish and maintain", with individuals accredited by the chief officer under a separate section of the same Act [4]. The Metropolitan Police's own guide to it says accredited status is awarded only "after an organisation has satisfied strict criteria that includes enhanced vetting and training standards, equal opportunities and race relations policies, and approved complaints and accountability procedures" [5], checked and revocable by the police. The bus byelaw guidance names no equivalent external body to check, approve or revoke an authority's self-assessment against the standard it is told to "mirror" [2] | An externally policed vetting and training standard becomes an internally policed one; the authority enforcing the byelaws is also the authority confirming it is fit to enforce them |
The mistakes, counted
The revenue disclaimer has no mechanism behind it (1). Saying enforcement must never be about money, twice, does not stop it from functioning that way if the same guidance tells the enforcer to keep the fines and spend them on enforcing more of the same byelaws [2]. The Act that created these fixed penalty notices caps each one at £100 but sets no rule on how the income is used and creates no duty to report it [3]. Nothing outside the guidance's own wording would currently show whether an authority that increased enforcement activity had done so to cut nuisance behaviour or to fund its enforcement team.
A police-run safeguard becomes a self-certified one (2). The Community Safety Accreditation Scheme exists precisely so that an outside party, a chief officer of police, decides whether an organisation's vetting, training and complaints-handling are good enough before its staff get enforcement powers near the public [4]. The bus byelaw guidance tells authorities they can skip that external sign-off, so long as they personally judge themselves to be "mirroring" it [2]. No chief constable, inspectorate or other outside body is named as the one who checks that judgement, and no process is set out for removing an authority's enforcement standing if it turns out to be wrong.
Credit where due
Much of this guidance is careful, not careless. It explicitly rules out "a blanket zero-tolerance approach", tells officers to weigh whether enforcement would be "disproportionate to the offence", and sets out an "engage, educate, enforce" sequence before any penalty is issued [2]. It directs officers to consider that apparent intoxication "may have alternative explanations", naming medication side-effects and medical conditions, before treating someone as a target for enforcement rather than support [2]. And the underlying Act builds in a real procedural check the guidance does not undercut: no byelaw can be enforced until it has been published for at least 28 days with an invitation for the public to object, and the authority "must not submit the byelaws for confirmation unless they have considered the representations" made against them [3].
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. The Department for Transport has built genuine proportionality safeguards into how officers should treat individual passengers, then left the money and the vetting with far less scrutiny than either deserves. An enforcement regime that funds itself from the fines it issues, and polices its own fitness to issue them, does not need to be abused to be a bad design; it only needs nobody outside the enforcing authority to be watching.
The star score counts two documented mistakes. First, the guidance states twice that enforcement must never be used to raise revenue, then instructs enforcing authorities to keep every fixed penalty notice receipt and spend it on further byelaw enforcement, with no statutory reporting duty or revenue rule in the Bus Services Act 2025 itself. Second, the guidance allows authorities to bypass the police-run Community Safety Accreditation Scheme and instead self-certify against an equivalent standard, naming no external body to check, approve or revoke that self-assessment. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding about the conduct of any named official; the guidance's own wording and structure are institutional facts, not any individual's decision. Checked directly against the guidance, the Bus Services Act 2025, the Police Reform Act 2002 and the Metropolitan Police's published CSAS guide, all fetched 19 October 2026.
Sources
- Using bus byelaws to tackle nuisance behaviour, Department for Transport, published 19 October 2026
- Using bus byelaws to tackle nuisance behaviour (guidance text), Department for Transport, published 19 October 2026
- Bus Services Act 2025, section 28, legislation.gov.uk
- Police Reform Act 2002, section 40, legislation.gov.uk
- A guide to the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme, Metropolitan Police