There’s so much to take in & to be clarified but the enforced quality partnerships need to have a nationally mandated framework. I don’t see why a council with a poor track record of supporting buses (Hi, Hartlepool) would be any more motivated to support buses under this arrangement. What would prevent the operator and the council agreeing to *reduce* services to save costs?

As for cross boundary services, it could be messy to get every local authority in which the X9/10/11 operate to agree.