Franchising news this morning

[adb968008]

4 hours ago, CEINEWYDD said:

Somebody has raised the issue of council tax and HMRC allowances.  Before you go down this route be aware that when (IF?) you sell your main residence, you get exemption from capital gains tax (Currently 40% of profit).  If you claim business use relief, then this can/will be used to claw back some of that relief.  i.e. it may cost you more than you have gained.  Don't ask me to work out some figures as it is 53 years since I did 'O' level maths.  

let’s deal in facts..
https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

Quote

From 6 April 2020 your employer can pay you up to £6 a week (£26 a month) to cover your additional costs if you have to work from home. For previous tax years the rate is £4 a week (£18 a month).

if unsure, ask an accountant, mine has advised me here on this topic for several years.

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by adb968008

[rockershovel]

Interesting item on this morning’s news; seems the government intend to support the railways for the next 18 months. Various discussion of the differences between “franchise” and “concession” firms of contract. It sounds as though the first is reckoned unworkable and/or politically unacceptable, and the second is seen as a politically acceptable alternative to nationalisation, which is politically unacceptable but could develop by default if franchisees default or surrender their contracts or simply allow them to expire. 

 

No 2 Son told me yesterday that his employer was instituting a “desk booking” system with a target of 40% occupancy; he hasn’t been in since the whole madness began, except once to collect his second monitor, digitising tablet, cables and various sundries. He reckons he couldn’t now work at his desk if he wanted to, welcomed the effective abandonment of free-for-all hot-desks and finds the Covid measures in the office unworkable. My erstwhile son-in-Law told me that his business was rapidly adapting to an all-virtual model, having concluded that the savings to clients (personnel coming together in a dedicated meeting room, basically) were the key issue. 

 

Sounds as though planning and forecasting is moving towards a substantial long-term reduction in commuter traffic, with attendant changes in the whole structure of rail services. 

[Paul.Uni]

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/158098-changes-to-uk-railway-franchising/

[GeoffAlan]

13 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Interesting item on this morning’s news; seems the government intend to support the railways for the next 18 months. Various discussion of the differences between “franchise” and “concession” firms of contract. It sounds as though the first is reckoned unworkable and/or politically unacceptable, and the second is seen as a politically acceptable alternative to nationalisation, which is politically unacceptable but could develop by default if franchisees default or surrender their contracts or simply allow them to expire. 

 

No 2 Son told me yesterday that his employer was instituting a “desk booking” system with a target of 40% occupancy; he hasn’t been in since the whole madness began, except once to collect his second monitor, digitising tablet, cables and various sundries. He reckons he couldn’t now work at his desk if he wanted to, welcomed the effective abandonment of free-for-all hot-desks and finds the Covid measures in the office unworkable. My erstwhile son-in-Law told me that his business was rapidly adapting to an all-virtual model, having concluded that the savings to clients (personnel coming together in a dedicated meeting room, basically) were the key issue. 

 

Sounds as though planning and forecasting is moving towards a substantial long-term reduction in commuter traffic, with attendant changes in the whole structure of rail services. 

I do hope you're correct.  But doubt that employers will be willing to let people work 'unsupervised' once a vaccine has been developed. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 minutes ago, GeoffAlan said:

I do hope you're correct.  But doubt that employers will be willing to let people work 'unsupervised' once a vaccine has been developed. 

Even in a conventional office situation, most supervision is done via the IT Dept checking what use is being made of the computer. That can be done just as well remotely.

[LNER4479]

It's official:

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/emergency-measured-rail-franchises-continue-coronavirus-a4551856.html

 

Sounds like I'm not the only one on here who will not mourn the passing of the franchising system. My only regret is the length of time it has taken to kill it off.

 

I don't often have a 'rant' and it will be somewhat measured in any case but as a career railwayman who started work with a little known company called 'British Rail' some 34 years ago this week, I reflect on 11 years with BR (the BR TOU I found myself in at the time was one of the last to become a TOC, in 1997) and 23 years experiencing the privatised world of franchising.

 

British Rail wasn't perfect - far from it - but when I saw former colleagues, who used to work together doing their best trying to deliver a train service in less-than-ideal circumstances, reduced to tearing huge lumps out of each either side of a contract divide I immediately had my doubts. The initial wave of non-railway whizz kids who thought they knew better only confirmed by suspicions.

 

Tis true that certain aspects of the initial 1994 structure have been addressed, although it was very sad that it took a fatal accident (Hatfield) to expose the horrible failings of profit-driven Railtrack, and the post 2006 structure has certainly underpinned an unprecedented period of railway safety. Tis also true that there has been massive investment in new train fleets - but wouldn't British Rail have done that anyway, had it had the money that has been available to the privatised industry? Tis as well true that rail ridership figures more than doubled since 1994 - but some of that is surely a consequence of road congestion and the relative cost of the two travel modes? (plus the afore-mentioned new trains)

 

For me, the real comparison with the UK railway PLC way of doing things is when you experience rail travel in mainland Europe, as has been my joy to do over the last 15-20 years. A combination of long term, continued investment in the Trans-Europe high speed rail network, plus an innate understanding of true integrated public transport is a joy to behold. It's a rare day travelling around in Europe when it doesn't all work seamlessly (yes, there has been the odd occasion!) and it doesn't cost the earth either. Some of the trips have been on a professional basis, working with fellow European rail workers - and there's been many a conversation over lunch where they've expressed their bewilderment at the complexities and peculiarities of the UK way.

 

There's many a good practice there that could be adopted by our politicians and civil service types as they wrestle with the way forward - but somehow I doubt it'll change very much. As one hard-bitten senior BR manager once said to me when we were having a mini-reorg.:

 

"There's only about five different ways to run a railway ... and they've all been tried"!

 

Not much of a rant really? Just my way of marking the passing of something deeply unloved (at least by this railway professional and enthusiast).

 

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, GeoffAlan said:

I do hope you're correct.  But doubt that employers will be willing to let people work 'unsupervised' once a vaccine has been developed. 

Productivity can be measured in many ways, it doesn't take a great deal to figure out if someone isn't doing their job.

 

Any office based company with big offices in cities will be reviewing their portfolio fast - the exodus has begun.

 

There will still need to be offices, there are still good reasons to have them, but the savings that a company can make, the ability to expand and contract with much less risk when it comes to property will drive this going forward.  Covid has delivered something that even a nationwide broadband service could not, a step change in working environments.

 

There are still though a lot of people who have to travel in to work - what those numbers look like when the businesses that draw them in depend on office workers remains to be seen - that our economy has been service based for so long will soon come home to roost.

[rockershovel]

Quite so. 

 

There is a major issue developing here. Some jobs CAN be worked remotely, some can’t (sorting parcels by Royal Mail, to pick an example at random). A minimum, critical mass of resources needs to exist to sustain the core focus, competency and activity of the company. 

 

The oil and gas industry went through this process a number of years ago, when it became possible to work online, and the boundaries between remote working, outsourcing and on-location working are now generally understood. 

 

Much of the “service sector” will simply disappear, as the hordes of lower-level office workers which sustain it, melt away. 

[rockershovel]

Looking at some of the earlier correspondence, “carnet systems” aren’t the half of it. Fares aren’t a fixed cost through the day, for one thing. Nor are they the same, per mile,  on all routes. I had a rather unimpressive experience a while ago, when some sort of breakdown produced general chaos in the wilderness of local services and operators between the ECML and the actual East Coast towns, as travellers sought to follow whatever route seemed feasible ...

 

The Conservatives wanted franchising in the 1990s, and pushed it through regardless in the expectation of electoral defeat, sooner or later. Twenty five years later, it STILL doesn’t work and the electorate have had enough of the whole affair. 

[rockershovel]

Re LNER4479, above, I’ve repeatedly heard the same thing from my European colleagues; that they put the engineering people in charge, while we put the financial people in charge, and the results are about what you would expect. 

[BR(S)]

Government press release:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rail-franchising-reaches-the-terminus-as-a-new-railway-takes-shape

 

My understanding is that talks are now on-going regarding financial settlements from TOCs to government based on their previous franchise contracts. This will be reported on in three months. I have no links to further details of that though, if anyone else can oblige.

[Nearholmer]

Neither "only finance people" nor "only engineers"*, nor "only any other trade/profession" is what is needed to set out the objectives for, and then run, a railway.

 

It needs very smart people from a variety of backgrounds, under good leadership. Finding suitable leaders won't be/isn't an easy task though - the number of people around with the right mix of knowledge, experience, personal qualities, energy etc is very small, especially since the breeding ground that developed the likes of Chris Green and Adrian Shooter hasn't existed for a long time.

 

One thing it very definitely doesn't need though, is constant meddling by people who are frankly amateurs when it comes to running the job, that is to say politicians and civil servants. Their job is to set the objectives, find the leaders to deliver it, then hold those people accountable for the results, but not constantly get under their feet.

 

Lets hope to goodness this is the first glimmer of a new dawn ....... but if it is, the sun is rising into a thick covering of storm clouds.

 

*Speaking as a career-long railway engineer and capital programmes manager, its tempting to say that engineers have all the answers, but we don't.

[Joseph_Pestell]

22 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Looking at some of the earlier correspondence, “carnet systems” aren’t the half of it. Fares aren’t a fixed cost through the day, for one thing. Nor are they the same, per mile,  on all routes. I had a rather unimpressive experience a while ago, when some sort of breakdown produced general chaos in the wilderness of local services and operators between the ECML and the actual East Coast towns, as travellers sought to follow whatever route seemed feasible ...

 

The Conservatives wanted franchising in the 1990s, and pushed it through regardless in the expectation of electoral defeat, sooner or later. Twenty five years later, it STILL doesn’t work and the electorate have had enough of the whole affair. 

 

Getting rid of the franchise system should make it rather easier to reform the fares structure. IT capabilities have moved forward massively in the 25 years since privatisation and offer plenty of possibilities.

[lmsforever]

Seems that the only franchise that has succeeded is Scotrail but is it really one ,more and more the Scottish government are and have made the decisions on new lines,rolling stock,.Happily it has worked and long may it continue as has Chiltern so franchises can work.Goverment control can be be bad civil servants are not commercialy minded and do not inovate like privateenterprise.Concessions are the future but not with govermental interference.

[62613]

8 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Seems that the only franchise that has succeeded is Scotrail but is it really one ,more and more the Scottish government are and have made the decisions on new lines,rolling stock,.Happily it has worked and long may it continue as has Chiltern so franchises can work.Goverment control can be be bad civil servants are not commercialy minded and do not inovate like privateenterprise.Concessions are the future but not with govermental interference.

Is Scotrail a franchise or a some other entity? Have the DafT interfered in the running of Chiltern, beyond granting it a long franchise, which has allowed a more long-term outlook? On the third, are you saying that when the railways were nationalised, there was no innovation? Some of these questions I don't properly know the answers to, but would love to be educated on by those with some knowledge of events.

 

I would say, as Nearholmer has above, that as long as the DafT is kept at arms length from day to day operation, and that if structures are put in place to allow reasonable investment and renewals, then the review will have been worthwhile.

 

[Nearholmer]

Another issue that it is easy to overlook in all this is public accountability.

 

The national railway consumes a good slice of public money, and affects the lives of a great many people to a lesser of greater extent, so should be accountable to the public, logically through elected politicians.

 

It is now, but the route of accountability is, in most cases, utterly useless/ineffective - a government gets elected (that's the public involvement done with), a transport minister gets appointed (usually a succession of not particularly bright stars, with a very occasional inexperienced bright star), and they are so run off their feet that they pass the job to civil servants.

 

TfL, like most major cities, has far better routes of accountability, because The Board structure makes it so ........ the professionals who run the job are not accountable to a bunch of civil servants trying to double-guess the wants/needs/mood of the wider population, but to a board with pretty wide representation. Not directly elected (they are in a few cities worldwide I think) but at least broad-based, and focused on results not meddling.

 

The whole UK is really too big to allow this to work as well as it does in cities, but Scotland isn't, neither Wales, and a combination of regional transport authorities with boards (I think Manchester might have that already, and possibly West Midlands), and an English Railway Board, are seriously needed as well as structural reform of the delivery mechanisms.

[LNER4479]

22 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Neither "only finance people" nor "only engineers"*, nor "only any other trade/profession" is what is needed to set out the objectives for, and then run, a railway.

[snip]

 

22 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

*Speaking as a career-long railway engineer and capital programmes manager, its tempting to say that engineers have all the answers, but we don't.

 

Spot on

 

The start of my railway career more or less coincided with the scrapping of the APT project and for many years that was cited - with some justification - as all that was wrong about an engineering-led project.

 

34 years (and counting) has taught me that you need a balanced, co-ordinated team, all committed to the long term goal (call it 'mission statement' if you will) to stand a chance of success (whatever that looks like). Let's hope those challenged with the task of taking the country's railways forward have that in mind ... but I'm not holding my breath.

[LNER4479]

18 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Seems that the only franchise that has succeeded is Scotrail but is it really one ,more and more the Scottish government are and have made the decisions on new lines, rolling stock. 

Transport for Scotland's Director of Rail is a time-served BR man and a former colleague. Top bloke who both understands how a railway works and can handle the politics. 'Nuff said.

[corneliuslundie]

"but not with govermental interference"

But there's the rub. They won't let go. In fact my feeling is they will tighten their grip, making what could have been a major step forward a step backwards.

A major problem for the franchise system in recent years (and I don't like franchising) is the micromanaging by the civil service, especially as far as I can see a certain Mr W. BR was operated at arms length from the government. The new system is extremely unlikely to be. Therefore I am not optimistic.

And over the next few years said new operators are going to have to manage a constantly changing situation with very little information as to what the future will be like.

I shall not be applying for a job on the railway!

Jonathan

[Mike_Walker]

50 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Transport for Scotland's Director of Rail is a time-served BR man and a former colleague. Top bloke who both understands how a railway works and can handle the politics. 'Nuff said.

Sadly, there aren't enough like him to go round!

 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

[snip]

 

 

Spot on

 

The start of my railway career more or less coincided with the scrapping of the APT project and for many years that was cited - with some justification - as all that was wrong about an engineering-led project.

 

34 years (and counting) has taught me that you need a balanced, co-ordinated team, all committed to the long term goal (call it 'mission statement' if you will) to stand a chance of success (whatever that looks like). Let's hope those challenged with the task of taking the country's railways forward have that in mind ... but I'm not holding my breath.

 

APT is an interesting example. A viable concept, but I’ve heard it said more than once that it was led by the wrong engineers. Not all engineers are interchangeable, and I’ve heard the point made that the original concept was overly influenced by being based around aerospace technology, compared to what was subsequently developed elsewhere. 

 

I don’t know if this is true, but I understand the point - I’d be most interested if anyone has any informed comments on this? 

[caradoc]

18 hours ago, steve45 said:

If his employer has no control why does his family have to remain downstairs? I think the employer is OTT and I would be looking for another position if I was in that situation

 

For his benefit; To avoid him being distracted by extraneous noise, comings and goings etc.

For my/our benefit; I do not wish to listen to him at work, or to have to tiptoe around the house. 

 

If it was thsat easy to obtain another, better position, believe you me he would already have done so; It was difficult before the pandemic, never mind now.......

 

[melmerby]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

The whole UK is really too big to allow this to work as well as it does in cities, but Scotland isn't, neither Wales, and a combination of regional transport authorities with boards (I think Manchester might have that already, and possibly West Midlands), and an English Railway Board, are seriously needed as well as structural reform of the delivery mechanisms.

Transport for West Midlands, which has been running for a while now is an agency of the West Midlands Combined Authority that has, unlike the 1970s West Midlands County (which was only really interested in it's own area), representatives of the wider West Midlands area, such as Worcestershire & Warwickshire etc. and not just the Metropolitan districts.

As such a more sensible approach to public transport is being followed.

e.g. West Midlands Railway is a partnership with West Midlands Trains and is focussed on the TfWM requirements in the wider area.

Edited September 21, 2020 by melmerby
my poor grammar/punctuation/etc

[Nearholmer]

“I don’t know if this is true, but I understand the point - I’d be most interested if anyone has any informed comments on this?”

 

The way APT was ‘taught’, in the sense of passed down as a lesson of how not to do it, and was written-up by good commentators in books, is that the team effectively lost, or never had, the plot on time, cost, or operational/system integration. Reasons For that were complex.

 

The final one is a classic ‘railway mistake’, of which there are examples stretching back way into the age of steam and forward into at least one current mega-project that I can think of.

 

But, in fairness, Britain didn’t have a great record in complex delivery anywhere from post -WW2 (And the Yanks deserve massive credit on the organisational side there), and things like Formal project controls, the APM, and the very searching Audit Commission reports that have improved practices were way in the future.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Nearholmer

[rockershovel]

Scottish commuting patterns are completely different to English ones. Less than 15% of the population of the UK, nearly 50% of the land area; 80% of the population of Scotland live in Glasgow, Edinburgh or the East Coast around Aberdeen, and the pattern of large commuter populations travelling 30-70 miles daily doesn’t exist. 

 

I’ve worked from home intermittently for a long while and if you DON’T shut yourself away from the kids, laundry, bored wife wanting company, you get nothing done. It’s that simple.