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The basic scope of the problems has mostly been reported or leaked already, for example on the way inflation was calculated and the size of the bond required, but transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin says this all remains just speculation until Laidlaw’s report.
Some have questioned whether the Centrica chief executive, the DfT’s lead non-executive board member, who also leads on procurement among government non-executives, has the necessary independence to produce the kind of conclusions needed. We’ll have to wait and see on that, but clearly the key question will be about accountability and responsibility of those higher up the chain than the officials already suspended.
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The permanent secretary and ministers have both made clear this was very much a civil service mistake, and not one for which ministers have direct responsibility. But in our system, ministers are accountable to Parliament for the mistakes of their department, meaning both McLoughlin and his predecessor Justine Greening – now at International Development, and an accountant by training – will be very interested in the Laidlaw review’s conclusions.
Franchise demise As
RTM went to press, Sam Laidlaw was still busy getting to the bottom of exactly what happened with the West Coast franchising fiasco – surely one of the biggest and most embarrassing civil service mistakes of recent years.
Franchising policy: is it time to start again on a blank sheet of paper?
Even though Virgin, FirstGroup
and the other bidders have been told they did absolutely nothing wrong and will be compensated for the money wasted on the franchise competition, they could yet end up as losers from the long-term fallout, as its clear that the whole franchising process has come under renewed scrutiny and criticism.
McLoughlin’s decision to seek a Virgin contract extension, rather than let Directly Operated Railways step in, could help head off this to some extent – there was probably some feeling that having a state- owned entity running both major routes, the WCML and ECML, could give more people the idea that maybe private companies weren’t such a necessary part of the whole process. It is notable that Labour has been taking a far more sceptical line over franchising than it ever did in power, though any outpouring of public desire for re-nationalisation is tempered by the fact there was a
clear groundswell of support for Virgin when it seemed as if it was about to be out of the railway game altogether.
For now, we get a contract extension while a short-term franchise competition is run, then a longer-term franchise after that. We’ve also got other major franchise competitions still on hold, and costs racking up all round.
Not a great autumn for the railways.
The DfT insists that the mistakes are not evidence of department- wide incompetence of the sort that would need the HS2 or Thameslink rolling stock processes re-opened.
Speaking of which, still no financial close…
Adam Hewitt Editor
16 Dinner at Derby Full report from this fantastic event
29 Apprentices on track RTM hears from the next generation
41 Traffic management Hitachi tells us about its prototype system
48 Any weather
Making Network Rail assets storm resilient
rail technology magazine Oct/Nov 12 | 1
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