Rebirth of the SRA?

[david.hill64]

Today's Times has an article reporting that DfT wants more control of the railways.

 

 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/rail-agency-proposal-to-cure-chaos-62v6c08fx

 

Part of it is about the government (ie taxpayers) taking more revenue risk as the current system isn't working as it should. I am sure that there will be multiple theories as to why that is, but on what we have seen to date, any solution that gives even more power to DfT would appear to me to be sub-optimal.

['CHARD]

Sheeeeesh....

 

They use every possible access to micro-manage the railway as it is, they just simply can't bear the idea of it being a holistic, joined up national railway for dogmatic reasons.

 

This would be stifling and counter-productive.  Resist or Renationalise.

[jjb1970]

How much more power to micro-manage does DafT want? Given the baleful influence of DafT on the railway sector I think that we need to hand them even more powers to interfere like we need a hole in the head.

 

I’m with Chard on this, they should either butt out, or we should re-nationalise. The current half-baked arrangement which allows DafT to micro-manage and dictate whilst allowing themselves and politicians to hide behind the “privatised” railway and blame TOCs for anything that is unpopular seems to be almost a charter for irresponsible government interference and is resulting in the worst all systems in combining the less desirable elements of both a private and nationalised system.

 

The concern I have with re-nationalising is that we wouldn't return to BR, we'd just see the civil servants of DafT given free reign to play with the trainset and I think that'd be catastrophic based on previous form.

[Nearholmer]

It's interesting to see the job roles they're trying to recruit to, which are astonishingly "close to the grain" for a government department, but not paid well enough to attract the necessary calibre IMHO.

 

I'm a great believer that things work best when accountability and control rest in the same place, and the current drift seems to go in exactly the opposite direction, unless I've misunderstood it. Better a publicly owned railway operator, accountable to appropriate regional or national elected representatives, and better still if it has the infrastructure too.

 

K

Edited July 17, 2017 by Nearholmer

[jim.snowdon]

It's interesting to see the job roles they're trying to recruit to, which are astonishingly "close to the grain" for a government department, but not paid well enough to attract the necessary calibre IMHO.

 

I'm a great believer that things work best when accountability and control rest in the same place, and the current drift seems to go in exactly the opposite direction, unless I've misunderstood it. Better a publicly owned railway operator, accountable to appropriate regional or national elected representatives, and better still if it has the infrastructure too.

 

K

Essentially what happens in the rest of Europe, and which, on the whole, seems to work quite well.

 

Alt the EU Directive required were splitting day to day responsibility for the infrastructure from railway operations, and accepting the principles of Open Access. Only the UK gold-plated its interpretation of that into a privately ownered infrastructure (Railtrack), with every aspect of operations left to a private companies. Open access was not axactly encouraged, and certain franchise operators went out of their way to obstruct the few open access operators, probably the best know cases being Wrexham & Shropshire, whom Virgin prevented from calling at Birmingham New Street, and Grand Central, who had to take GNER to the courts to win their case.

 

That said, today, we might as well simply give the Great Eastern to NS, and its infrastructure to Pro-Rail.

 

Jim

[Zomboid]

That said, today, we might as well simply give the Great Eastern to NS, and its infrastructure to Pro-Rail.

 

Jim

What do Norfolk Southern know about suburban trains? Or intercity ones, for that matter.

(Actually they'd have quite a good name for the GE at least, even if massive freights and trying to avoid any passenger traffic at all might not be ideal...).

[jim.snowdon]

Wrong NS - Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the parent company of Abellio.

 

Jim

[D854_Tiger]

Today's Times has an article reporting that DfT wants more control of the railways.

 

 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/rail-agency-proposal-to-cure-chaos-62v6c08fx

 

Part of it is about the government (ie taxpayers) taking more revenue risk as the current system isn't working as it should. I am sure that there will be multiple theories as to why that is, but on what we have seen to date, any solution that gives even more power to DfT would appear to me to be sub-optimal.

 

 

The problem is that it's going to be many years before government will be able to afford to do so, they badly need mechanisms to attract more private sector investment to the railways not less.

 

One look at the ECML franchise tells us that, there was no way the DfT were ever going to match the private sector's level of investment offer.

 

Much longer franchises like Chiltern would seem to be the answer to that prayer.

[phil-b259]

Much longer franchises like Chiltern would seem to be the answer to that prayer.

 

Except that means Ministers cannot tinker with things every few years. You have to remember that even the most sucessfull Governments are rarely in power for more than 3 terms so if you let something on a 20 year franchise then thats it for your entire political career.

 

Hence the desire for 7 - 10 year franchises giving plenty of opportunities for Government to stick its ore in - usually under the guise of boasting how investment is at record levels etc.

[Dunsignalling]

Except that means Ministers cannot tinker with things every few years. You have to remember that even the most sucessfull Governments are rarely in power for more than 3 terms so if you let something on a 20 year franchise then thats it for your entire political career.

 

Hence the desire for 7 - 10 year franchises giving plenty of opportunities for Government to stick its ore in - usually under the guise of boasting how investment is at record levels etc.

On current form, since the Fixed Term Parliament Act has been exposed as the meaningless sham I suspected it would be from the get-go, we are likely to see at least two governments in the course of a 7-year franchise and three during a 10-year one.

 

One suspects the PM now wishes the opposition had made her stew in her own juice until 2019, she'll be going then anyway but life is a whole lot harder in the meantime.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[jjb1970]

It's interesting to see the job roles they're trying to recruit to, which are astonishingly "close to the grain" for a government department, but not paid well enough to attract the necessary calibre IMHO.

 

I'm a great believer that things work best when accountability and control rest in the same place, and the current drift seems to go in exactly the opposite direction, unless I've misunderstood it. Better a publicly owned railway operator, accountable to appropriate regional or national elected representatives, and better still if it has the infrastructure too.

 

K

Accountability has to go hand in hand with power and authority in any functioning organisation. That holds true whether it is the public sector or the private sector. Power without accountability is rarely a recipe for good governance and success. A fully privatised railway accountable for its own decisions would work, as would a fully public railway (providing politicians and Whitehall civil servants were bright enough to leave most management to people that know what they're doing). The private vs. public debate always seems to miss the point to me and is a distraction, what is needed is good decision making and strategic level investment. The current system seems to separate power and responsibility and is shaped by short term political calculations which is having a dreadful impact. Yet for all that, I find that on a day to day basis the railway network works far better than it should given DafT's interference and most of the TOCs and NR do a very good job when left alone to get on with it.

[Nearholmer]

Jjb

 

I'm not seeking to make a private vs public case; I'm seeking to advocate one model of public control over another.

 

The model I don't like is one that involves attempted control, which really amounts to meddling, by a body that doesn't "carry the can" for day to day service delivery.

 

I'd agree though, that what is needed is a railway company (actually several, each looking after defined routes) run by professional railway people, whether it be private or public, which is solidly and effectively answerable to elected politicians in respect of service delivery where that is underpinned by public subsidy, publicly funded capital investment, and long term stewardship. It's a model that seems to work tolerably well in London and many other places.

 

The DfT is not a railway company; it is a central government department, and, as such, ill-suited to close involvement in the practical realisation of anything ....... it should be no more than a very small strategy-setting body, using the allocation of centrally arbitrated funds as its tool.

[jjb1970]

The problem is that many people at DafT genuinely believe that they know better than industry, and also they’re convinced that industry is out to rip them off.

 

I don’t deal with the railway people at DafT but over the years I’ve dealt with a lot of their people in one of the other transport sectors and it is quite frightening to observe some of their behaviours and opinions of the world outside of DafT. And often they seem to by-pass basic understanding and proceed directly to trying to regulate things with no understanding of what they’re regulating. A few years ago they were discussing certain things to regulate UK marine fuels. When asked them if their intent was to regulate fuel loaded by ships from UK based suppliers, or to regulate fuel loaded in UK ports, or was it to regulate fuels used by UK registered ships or was it to regulate fuels used by ships in UK waters and they couldn’t answer because nobody had considered the question and they were ignorant of just how fundamentally different each of those concepts is.

 

The confrontational relationship they often pursue with industry is interesting. All private companies want to make a profit, most also want to build good long term relationships and usually there is a willingness to apply a reasonable approach to disputes (if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest for the longer term). Yes it can be confrontational and both parties want to defend their interests, but I’ve never seen anything like the sort of confrontational and adversarial relationships between contract parties which I’ve seen in government contracts. The problem is it tends to backfire on government as very few civil servants seem to have the requisite knowledge and experience to really spar with the people who manage these things for companies like BAE, Lockheed, Roll Royce, Siemens, Hitachi etc.

 

Then there is the whole question of how governments figure out what they should be paying. The only price that matters is the price you can agree with a supplier if you’re involved in a major project. You could say that the cost of building HS2 is £100 and believe it, but if nobody will do the work for less than several tens of billions then that’s how much you have to pay. Government departments use external consultants to advise them on this (and I won’t go into the incestuous relationship between some of the big consultancies and government, nor the ghastly culture of government patronage it has created) and get fed wholly unrealistic figures. Rather than demanding to know how a consultant dreamt up rubbish when the figures are unrealistic the default is to accuse industry of ripping the government off.

[Nearholmer]

That having been said, it wouldn't be fair to tar them all with the same brush. I've dealt with people there who are both genuinely knowledgable, and willing to listen.

 

My feeling is that the problem gets really acute with really senior civil servants, who are used to the idea that their word is close to law, as it probably is with their subordinates, but clearly isn't with their wider 'stakeholder community', to use a buzz phrase.

 

K

[jjb1970]

I might send my CV in, it looks like they might need somebody that knows what a diesel engine is for the next few decades.......