Only a short paper to yesterday's North East CA Cabinet yesterday on Bus Reform, but they were asked to agree delegated authority to the Chief Executive to "commence procurement arrangements and approve contract awards for specialist support associated with the region’s Bus Franchising Scheme Assessment (FSA)".

In the paper, they state that the Bus Reform project is in a "mobilisation phase, which critically includes procurement of specialist support to support the development of the FSA". The current authority level is £500k, and the report suggests that this covers the event that they need to enlist support over the value, not that it's an absolute.

Reading the paper, the reasoning behind the request is that "specialist support is required to complete some elements, including economic and demand
modelling, which the CA does not have the skills or capacity to undertake internally". This sounds like a sensible approach, as I think there's a risk of tunnel vision by trying to deliver this modelling internally.