Comment
…and let GBR focus on day-to-day performance
rail@bauermedia.co.uk @RAIL
IT’S 20 years since the Department for Transport published a White Paper called The Future of Rail, in which it detailed the problems with a lack of accountability and strategic direction, cost and performance, and the gap in the relationship between Britain’s rail infrastructure provider and train operators.
In a section titled ‘What we are going to do’, the White Paper said: “The government will take charge of setting the strategy for the railways.” In doing this, it abolished the arm’s-length guiding mind it had created just a few years earlier called the Strategic Rail Authority.
It also pledged that Network Rail would be given clear responsibility for operating the network and its performance, that train and track companies would work more closely together, and that there would be an increased role for devolved bodies and the London mayor.
DfT succeeded with the last of those pledges, as progress with electrification in Scotland shows, together with the improvements Transport for Wales is bringing, particularly on the Valley Lines in South Wales. In London, rail services are transformed with the creation of London Overground.
But having grabbed power for itself, the Department for Transport proved woeful at wielding it. From its central position, it presided over a franchising crisis when it reversed its decision in 2012 to award the West Coast operating deal to FirstGroup. It oversaw the botched introduction of new timetables in May 2018 that resulted in a collapse in reliability, particularly for Thameslink, but also across Northern England.
Its oversight of the Great Western Main Line’s electrification in the 2010s resulted in it having to scale back its ambitions, having overspent. More recently, it has hacked back, at the Prime Minister’s insistence, High Speed 2.
Now it’s presiding over a very delayed programme of rail reform that’s headed by the creation of another arm’s-length guiding mind, Great British Railways.
This comes coupled with reform within DfT. That’s sensible. If you’re going create a lean GBR plug, it makes sense to rejig DfT structures to form a matching socket. Not that you’d know – when RAIL asked whether DfT was creating a new director general’s role for rail and what duties the post would cover, the answer that came back was at best mealy mouthed.
DfT’s press office said that it didn’t comment on individual HR matters and then added: “The department continually adapts its structures to support the delivery of rail services and our rail reform plan, while ensuring value for money for the taxpayer.”
What a shame that it couldn’t simply confirm that it’s creating a new Rail Infrastructure and Services Delivery Group to be h
