Go Ahead have got it right - partnerships are the way forward, not franchising. The local authorities should set specifications (the frequency and start/finish times for various types of services, use of inter-operator tickets, etc) but operators should be able to run services they wish commercially and set the fares for their own routes. However there should be a veto available to authorities to limit unnecessary competition over the same routes so where two operators want to run a particular route the one who offers the best proposal would be the one who gets it.