Jobs lost as London red buses charity collapses

More than 30 staff lost their jobs at the transport charity HCT Group collapsed at the end of the summer, a new report reveals.

HCT’s work included running transport services for children with special educational needs and operating red buses for Transport for London before it went into administration in September.

The charity recorded an annual income of £123m in the year to September 2020, but a report by the administrator says that the charity was impacted by financial difficulties “over an extended period”, caused first by Covid-19 and then by rising fuel costs and wage inflation.

HCT was founded in 1983 and became a social enterprise and charity in 2008.

It sold off its red bus services to the giant transport firm Stagecoach in August and transferred some of its children’s services to other providers before going into administration.

The administrators’ paperwork says that it held a conference call with all remaining staff shortly after being appointed, at which “the vast majority of these employees were notified of their redundancy”.

The documents show that 26 people lost their jobs then, with another five employees retained for two weeks to help administrators before also leaving their positions.

Former staff are likely to make claims to the administrator for unpaid leave, the documents say.

In a message posted online Frank Villeneuve-Smith, then communications director at HCT Group, wrote: “It is with deep regret and immense sadness that we announce that, after four decades serving our communities, HCT Group is to close.

“The move follows a period where we have been rocked by multiple challenges – a period of difficult trading prior to the pandemic, the financial impact of the pandemic itself, followed immediately by the current surge in fuel prices and cost-of-living crisis.

“This has led to unsustainable commercial losses and we see our situation as irrecoverable.”

He added: “We have run out of road.”

Villeneuve-Smith said that HCT Group “has provided many millions of passenger trips for older and disabled people on its specialist transport services, tackling social isolation and loneliness. It has provided millions more passenger trips for local community groups, helping to bring our communities together”.