FirstGroup sacked from TransPennine Express Contract

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

............just reported on the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65555262

[GBM]

So the Government now 'own/run' four companies?
22 more to go!

Wonder what the Government intend to do with those they own/run.

[ray951]

According to the GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) Transition Team it is government policy is to have a privatised railway, despite the failure of the current approach, so presumably they would want to re-let these contracts.

Of course, you have to ask how many companies do we have left that could or would want to take on these contracts, unless of course there is a bribe massive cash incentive.

With a General Election due in the next year or so let’s hope the new government has a different and more realistic approach.

[ellendune]

Listening to the commentary on the radio this morning, I reached the conclusion that the only way to improve the service was to settle the on-going dispute with ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about). A number of commentators who I would expect to be politically neutral (Northern Powerhouse ? - I may be wrong) felt that a reasonable settlement was possible, but essentially had been blocked by the government as a part of a wider policy to deflect from other industrial disputes in the public sector.  As I see it therefore First Group were in an impossible position and the OLR is probably not going to be able to do anything either unless DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) changes its tune. 

If they wan't to play politics with our rail services like this then I can't see other private operators queueing up to take on management contracts. 

[didcotdean]

This change won't in itself alter the fundamental issues causing the trouble, ie the number of trained drivers and the terms they are employed on, mainly the rest day working arrangements.

[ellendune]

This change won't in itself alter the fundamental issues causing the trouble, ie the number of trained drivers and the terms they are employed on, mainly the rest day working arrangements.

The view was that until rest day working was sorted they did not have the capacity to train new drivers so this was the key to solving the problem.

[Mark A]

So the Government now 'own/run' four companies?
22 more to go!

Wonder what the Government intend to do with those they own/run.

The structure for LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) - it can't be compared with that for, say, South Eastern Trains predicament, can it, as they're chalk and cheese, yes?

Mark

[TonyK]

This tremendous step forward means that instead of First Group cancelling TransPennine trains because of a shortage of drivers, the government will be cancelling TransPennine trains because of a shortage of drivers. Everyone gets different uniforms eventually. It does mean that the aggrieved unions can deal with HM Government directly, rather than fighting a proxy war. Once the disputes are all resolved, maybe things can start to improve.

[Electric train]

So the Government now 'own/run' four companies?
22 more to go!

Wonder what the Government intend to do with those they own/run.

The structure for LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) - it can't be compared with that for, say, South Eastern Trains predicament, can it, as they're chalk and cheese, yes?

Mark

SE Trains being in OOLR is in part political, the Mayor for London wants many of the SE metro services to taken over by TfL^» (Transport for London - about) the Government are not keen on the idea due the idea of TfL operating services wrangles with the Tory heartland in Kent.

GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) will be moving away from the franchise model to a management contract model, so will be open to competitive tender.  With the risk that the company that offers the lowest operating cost will win the contract!!!

[stuving]

GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) will be moving away from the franchise model to a management contract model, so will be open to competitive tender. 

That's already happened! At least the contracts have all changed over; there's been precious few open competitions so far. According to DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), nine operators have National rail contracts, three are Public Sector Train Operators (OLRs), and Cross-country and West Coast are under ERMAs.

[TonyK]

So the Government now 'own/run' four companies?
22 more to go!

Wonder what the Government intend to do with those they own/run.

One useful thing they could do with four former companies is to experiment with public ownership properly, honestly and without prejudice. Even if it is not publicly owned, the railway is a service to the public, so why not test the ownership model properly? There is still plenty for the private sector to do, even if  the drivers, signalmen, TMs^‡(resolve) and backroom staff all become civil servants again. You never know, it may turn out that it works better than the privatised model. There is plenty of data for the past period to compare things against.

SE Trains being in OOLR is in part political, the Mayor for London wants many of the SE metro services to taken over by TfL^» (Transport for London - about) the Government are not keen on the idea due the idea of TfL operating services wrangles with the Tory heartland in Kent.

Only partly political? If we start from the position that the whole privatisation idea was political, we can safely call London's transport as being ideological. The funny thing is that I doubt very many of the voters in the Kentish Tory paradise really care much about who runs the trains, so long as they appear on time more often than not.

[Bob_Blakey]

I believe that the railways in Great Britain (my knowledge of NIR is very limited) are an essential public service. The system will only work anywhere near to the required 100% efficiency if the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) / RDG^‡(resolve) allow the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s to employ sufficient drivers and/or other on-train staff to render the use of overtime and/or rest day working unnecessary. The calculation must obviously include a small surplus to account for leave and sickness absence. I completely fail to understand why the 'authorities' have apparently so religiously set their face against such an arrangement - having the whole workforce on an agreed standard remuneration per job class rather than spending vast sums on overtime surely must be more cost effective?

Those on this forum who know more about this subject please tell me why I am wrong.

[JayMac]

From Christian Wolmer, writing in The Guardian

The Conservatives are on a TransPennine Express to nowhere by insisting that private companies can run the railways

It should not really have taken Einstein to work out that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Nonetheless even this basic truth seems to be lost on the Conservative government and its relationship to the railways.

The lesson to be learned from the collapse of the TransPennine Express contract – the latest railway to be effectively nationalised by the government – should be all too obvious: relying on the private sector to provide an efficient, cost-effective and reliable railway was a fundamental mistake. Raw capitalism does not work in an industry that is heavily dependent on massive investment, that is a natural monopoly and provides an essential public service. The privatisation in the mid-1990s created a system of pretend capitalism, which involved the fragmentation of a coherent but complex industry into a series of interdependent companies motivated by private profit rather than public service.

If there is one thing that terrifies Tory politicians, it is the notion that British Rail was actually a successful, efficient and enterprising state owned and operated organisation. Time and again they resort to cheap jibes about bad sandwiches and the wrong type of snow, rather than examining the reality of an organisation that ran the system with less subsidy and provided a better level investment.

In a rational world, the taking back in-house of TransPennine Express, the fourth contract to be renationalised since 2018, would finally make ministers realise that the game is up. Yet, clearly they do not know their Einstein. Mark Harper, the latest in a long line of transport secretaries who have tried vainly to get a grip on the railways, emphasised in his statement that the contract would only be taken back “temporarily” and at some as yet undefined date would be put out to tender.

But why? He only has to look at the relative success of the other contracts that have been run by the government’s own in-house team of railway professionals to see that they are doing a better job than their private rivals. For instance, the publicly owned LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) managed to attract 106% of its pre-Covid passengers last year, compared with 65% on Avanti West Coast. Of course, external factors are also in play, such as better industrial relations and a different pattern of use, but this does go to prove that the obsession with privatising everything only has an ideological, rather than a commercial, basis.

Worse, the Tory government is about to enshrine the primacy of the private sector in legislation, with the creation of Great British Railways (GBR^▸ (Great British Railways)). This body is supposed to be established by government legislation later this year and resulted from the Keith Williams review and Grant Shapps’ white paper on the future structure of the railways.

While superficially the creation of GBR might seem like renationalisation, it is in fact quite the opposite. Under the structure envisaged by the Tories, it would merely provide a “guiding mind” for services that would all be provided by private companies – the same people who are responsible for the present muddle. Contracts would be tightly defined, and there would be little scope for entrepreneurial enterprise.

This is a missed opportunity to end the fragmentation of the railways, which is the cause of much of the inefficiency and has led to soaring costs and a poor performance. Moreover, while the Labour opposition is seemingly committed to public ownership, the devil will be in the detail. If the party has been lured by the name “Great British Railways” into thinking it is a useful model for their purposes, they’re in for a surprise. It won’t be. Instead it will merely entrench a failing system. The targets will be purely financial, rather than recognising the wider value of the railways in the environmental and decarbonising agenda.

The Tories are incorrigible and will never learn. The official opposition, for its part, must do better, and recognise the value of studying the history of the railways – which demonstrates that an integrated and unified organisation works best – and draw up plans for a real revived British Rail, not an ersatz model set up to fail.