Community transport is defined as transport which has been developed to meet the needs of communities not adequately served by public or commercial transport.  Within this broad definition there are a number of different types of services.  Organisations may provide individual responses for example offering vehicles for group transport, e.g. to take Brownies on trips, or a community association to a social club, or run a voluntary car scheme.  Specific job roles include:

• bus and coach drivers
• passenger assistance
• transport co-ordinator

Although there is little data on the industry, there are an estimated 10,000 employees working in the industry.  Women make up the majority of the workforce.  There is a shortage of young people in the industry.

Community transport has a shortage of volunteers.  Currently there are low levels of skills shortages.  Future skills needs are in:

• driving (17% of companies)
• basic IT (13%)
• disability awareness (12%)
• safety management (12%)
• driving instruction (7%)
• business development (5%)

The most known training available to those working in the community transport industry (or other industries involving minibus use) are the Minibus Driver Awareness Scheme (MiDAS) and Passenger Assistant Training Scheme (PATS).  These two courses are offered to companies through the Community Transport Association (CTA).

Employer statistics:

• organisations are most likely to employ between 11-50 employees
• 93% of companies employ no-one in an engineering role
• 80% had no customer service staff
• 87% employed at least one driver

Source: Data from GoSkills 2007, LMI Industry fact sheets 2006 and GoSkills Skills Needs Assessment (stage 1) sector summary 2006a