Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50841814 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50841814)

Franchise to end early. Be interesting to see what the Scottish Government does (I think Transport is a devolved function) as seems to have a different view on many things from the UK government.

Transport is devolved but the overall structure of the railways set by the Railways Act 1993 is a reserved matter.  As part of the Scotland Act 2016 however, section 25 of the 1993 Act was amended so that the prohibition on a public sector operator being a franchisee no longer applies to Scotland.

Transport is indeed devolved - it was the Scottish transport minister who cut the length of the franchise. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Scotrail has a monopoly on all Scottish services other than those which cross the border into England. The track and infrastructure is run by our old friend Notwork Rail. Scotland will still need an internal railway, so the minister will have to choose between asking for tenders for a new franchise, or taking Scotrail into public ownership, which he can do.  If he does that with the same rolling stock, then we can watch the experiment from England and see if a train driven by a civil servant is better or worse han one driven by the same person, but wearing an Abelio uniform. If he buys lots of new trains to augment the service, Abelio will cry "Foul!" if he starts saying his service is better than theirs.

Interesting, to say the least.

Can that be done without it going to tender first though (as per the Railways Act 1993 which is a reserved matter)?  The amendments made by the Scotland Act 2016 would of course allow a company in public ownership to bid.

EDIT:  Just gone through the relevant legislation and can see section 26(4B) regarding a statement of policy says:


So there does seem to be some scope for a direct award.

Presumably the advantage of a Scottish Government bid is that it would allow direct management of Scotrail rather than a one step removed process and having to nudge and influence the franchise holder?

Or does it still have to be an independent entity?

I guess you'd also save a small amount on dividends to shareholders although ideally the Scottish Assembly might want a Network Rail Scotland under their influence as well.

I don't think Scotland could afford its own Network Rail, even if it did do a grand job of reinstating the Borders line. The current national system across the current nation does allow for all of the railway to be catered for out of one pot of cash, no matter how vast the distances involved might be.

The nearest equivalent celtic fringe country's experience (Ireland) is not encouraging.....

I thought the Scottish Government separately funded Network Rail for Scotland.

It does, but at a discount and without some of the costs facing the rest of NR. The Statement of Funds Available has a footnote to the paragraph on funding: