The wheels on the bus... help the community

Friday 28 June 2019

Legendary music festival Glastonbury might not be something you think of when you hop on a bus, but that's exactly where Liberty Bus staff were two years ago this week - helping those with disabilities.

It's for that reason, among others, that the service can be considered a ‘social enterprise’ - a phrase becoming more and more commonplace in 2019 as businesses start to consider their role in the local community and further afield.

Perhaps Jersey’s bus service isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when hearing this phrase, but more than being good for the environment or an opportunity to chat to locals rather than commuting solo – Liberty Bus is more community minded than it might first appear. 

In a similar way to the Big Issue or the Eden Project, CT Plus Jersey (which operates Liberty Bus, and is part of the HCT Group) exists to put its profits back into the community it serves.

It’s a business without shareholders, unless you include everyone in Jersey given that the service operates under a contract with the island’s government.

Express spoke to the bus service’s HR/Training and Community Manager Nikki Withe to find out what sort of work Liberty Bus does for the island outside of providing its public transport... 

Pictured: Liberty Bus HR Manager with a responsibility for community and training Nikki Withe considers the bus service a 'social enterprise'. 

Glastonbury, 2017: It’s the hottest June for years. Festival-goers are enjoying themselves.

There are people in wheelchairs armed with full oxygen tanks, hearing-impaired people accompanied by signers to the side of a stage, feeling vibrations through the floor, and people with visual impairments soaking up the music. 

Making sure that all of them move easily around the site is a team of volunteers from the HCT Group, which runs Liberty Bus in Jersey. 

“That year, our group did all the disabled transport for Glastonbury,” says Nikki, pointing to a photograph in which she is wearing a Noddy Holder hat covered in buses.

“We had staff from Jersey, Guernsey and the UK volunteering for the week, from setting up to clearing away. It was an amazing experience. The festival-goers don't let any disability stop them.”

It’s not just money that is invested back into this social enterprise. It is time and energy, and it’s an ethos that drives Nikki’s day-to-day.

“We don't have any shareholders,” she explained. “We send a percentage of our profit to the UK as part of the operational costs for the group, but the majority of our profits remain in Jersey for the use of the local community. 

Pictured: The bus company doesn't have any shareholders and reinvests the "majority" of its money back into the community.

“When we took over the bus service in 2013, there was no driver training. All staff now have full training including customer service, disability and discrimination awareness, advanced driving and, because we handle so many tourists, a Know Jersey programme.”

Their training programme is now seen by many as best practice and it manifests itself in different ways. For example, they offer training in customer service, discrimination and disability awareness for inmates at the prison. They don't charge but, on a reciprocal basis, prisoners have built an office/shed at Liberty Bus’s base at La Collette, and they’re about to start on a programme of refurbishing bus seats.

They also do free travel training for Life Skills students at Highlands College. 

“It started three years ago helping the students travel independently,” Nikki said. “We spend two hours a week with them throughout the school year. Grainville and Haute Vallée have now asked to do similar training with their students.

“It’s fantastic,” she smiles, “this young man, Matt, when he first started using the bus, he wasn't confident at all. He has blossomed. He now shows his friends, other Mencap clients and the support workers how to sort out their bus passes. He is our poster boy.”

Liberty Bus have been working so closely with Jersey Mencap that all their artwork at their office and at Liberation Station is by the charity’s clients.

“Every week, we provide a minibus to collect Mencap clients from their art project at the Philip Mourant Centre in Trinity, back to Lib because there isn't a bus service that works for them. But because they have been doing the travel training and they want to travel as independently as possible, they go on the buses from here to go home. Sometimes I do the driving. It depends on who is around.  

“The Police also work closely with us and Mencap. Four years or so ago, they started a programme on people in uniform. Some clients may have had issues, fearing they were in trouble. We all go bowling, clients, our staff and police, so everyone gets to know each other.”

Pictured: Liberty Bus works closely with several local charities.

They might be called on to take care home residents out for the day, at no charge. It might be for lunch, to see the Christmas lights, or just a summer drive-around.

Once, Abbeyfield staff asked Liberty Bus if residents could be taken out for the day because they had disruptive building works going on.

“We get lots of nice thank-you cards for the community stuff we do,” says Nikki.

She also spends a lot of time working with schools. She visits Year 6 in every primary school in the summer term for travel training. In secondary schools, the emphasis is usually on behavioural issues. 

“I have been to all of the secondary schools to do assemblies, and that covers things like being safe, telling them not to throw food around, and not to be racist to fellow students or to the drivers, or to bully anyone. It’s all about the things that we won’t tolerate.”

And, in her ‘spare’ time, Nikki has to make time for the HR part of her role, sitting in management meetings, interviewing for staff, updating handbooks and dealing with any disciplinary matters.

“We are now coming up for the summer season, so I am interviewing drivers and getting them through training and induction. When I started in March 2013, there were 115 staff. We now have 203.”

For Nikki, her working day starts between 07:00 and 07.30. She aims to go home about 17.30, but admits that, “…nobody really ever switches off because we operate 21 hours out of 24, 362 days a year.” 

This year there have been two notable driver incidents - one where coffee was thrown over a driver, and the other was when a double-decker crashed into the corner of the bus station, a repeat of an accident four years ago. Investigations have to take place, and Liberty Bus liaise with the police on this and other matters.

Pictured: Since Nikki has been in post she's had to deal with two notable driver incidents, including a bus crashing into the station.

“We work very closely with the Police. Thanks to CCTV, or the use of a bus pass, we can often help find missing persons. And of course, the bus service and bus station are prime areas for young people, or the elderly, to gather. We see quite a few customers who have dementia, and drivers are on the lookout for concerns from what people might say or how they might appear." 

Nikki, who sits on the fundraising committee for Autism Jersey, and is on the HR sub-committee of the Chamber of Commerce, goes to Guernsey once a week to keep on top of things there too.

She liaises with several charities who talk to staff to raise awareness of dementia, autism, and what it’s like to be sight or hearing impaired. 

“There are days when it is nice and quiet and you get an admin day,” she said. “They are few and far between. But for me, I love the variety. You never know what your day’s going to bring.”

Nikki, who refers to herself as ‘an escapee’ from the finance industry, adds: “We’re an award-winning bus provider, with a one-team mentality. Drivers are front-facing but without engineering, cleaning and the control team, we wouldn't get anywhere.

“I like to think I am fair but firm. I am approachable, I have an open-door policy. We are quite a big employer, but I know all of our staff. I also like to go on the customer service desk myself.” 

Pictured: "I love the variety. You never know what your day’s going to bring."

She is also a mental health first aider, carries out mock interviews for the Jersey Employment Trust, and has herself been recognised for her work. 

In her office she has the Winter Star Award, ‘for getting tough stuff done’. She was nominated by her boss, Kevin Hart, because of how she had dealt with everything from the threat of industrial action, and the retention of staff, to the 2015 double-decker accident in a very busy Island Games week. 

When she does have time to relax, Nikki enjoys live music, cinema and stand-up comedy, getting out in the fresh air, and swimming in the summer. She also keeps in close touch with one daughter who lives in the UK, her other daughter who lives 200 yards away, and her seven grandchildren.

“While I’m fit, healthy and enjoying my job, I’m not in any rush to retire,” she says. “I think we’ve achieved great things in the last six years.” 

She is excited about a new project to reuse ‘dead’ buses, vehicles which would otherwise be scrapped when taken off the road.

“We have a ‘bus to library project’ which came from a request from Haute Vallée School, who needed additional library space. The Prison have carried out all of the work, and the students have designed the look and feel of it. It’s a whole community partnership involving several companies.”

Pictured: Nikki's award for "getting tough stuff done".

Nikki hopes there could be more bus conversions: “I want the community to come to us with projects. The UK has seen some fantastic initiatives where buses are converted into dormitories, as halfway houses for people leaving the prison system. It could be a drop-in centre, it could be a play bus, it could be… who knows? We have a limited supply but as they come offline, they will be available.”

Nikki concludes that for some people, a bus journey is just a means of getting from A to B. For many others, however, being able to catch a bus represents independence and can be nothing less than life-changing. And that is what she celebrates in her role.

She talks about Justin, a highly dependent young man with full-time carers. “His one and only obsession in life is buses. Everything we have, he automatically has - he gets our industry magazines, he has tours, he got the Noddy Holder hat from Glastonbury. Soon, he’s going to a bus show in the UK, which is near one of our depots, so we have arranged a surprise visit for him. I can’t wait to tell him.

"It’s seeing that kind of delight, that’s what it’s all about.”

This article originally appeared in the June edition of Connect. Click here to read it in full.

Pictured top: Nikki Withe, Liberty Bus' HR/Training and Community Manager, at work. (All photos by Gary Grimshaw)