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We should not cavil or carp over the lack of detail or vision on the Strategic Rail Authority's Strategic Plan. It is very much a holding operation while new Chairman Richard Bowker gets his hands on the levers that control the railway industry. Indeed, before that he has to turn the SRA bequeathed to him by its first Chairman Sir Alastair Morton into a functioning machine. Recruiting the new men and women who will head the three Groups which will handle the SRA's key functions will take time, as will the associated reorganisation
That said, Bowker knows where he is going and where he wants to get to, and already he is giving the SRA the urgency and focus it enjoyed in its previous incarnation as the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising. He told us that in his first day in the office, he found himself alone in the building at six o'clock . Now, the SRA still hums into the evening.
And until he can create his new model SRA, with its triple focus on operation, development and change, he has to rely on the strategic plan bequeathed by his predecessor, who was not exactly a beacon of strategic thinking. Hence the last paragraph of his foreword to the plan where Bowker says that it has his support as well as that of the SRA Board and the Government.
This is one of those perverse redundant statements which can be tested by making them negative. Without his support, let alone that of Government, the Plan would not have been published. Reading between the lines the SRA and Government are saying ‘it's not the definitive plan, but it's the best plan we've got and we endorse it until Richard can produce his own plan in a year's time'.
And in a year's time, we will expect to see the missing ingredient in the programme of medium term projects needed to meet the Government's targets of 50% more passenger kilometres, 80% more tonne kilometres and reduced overcrowding in London and the south East. The missing ingredient is, of course, the costs of each scheme,
At present we do not know what public sector funding, now increased by £4.5bn to £33.5bn over the 10 years of the Government's plan. Or indeed, given the Ford Factor, whether it is enough to fund all the committed projects in the Strategic Plan. It is that vague, but we are confident that a year of Richard Bowker's hard driving will see a very much more meaningful revised Strategic Plan in 2003.
And we also hope that some of the apparent loss of corporate memory in the 2002 version will have been remedied. In particular the Thatcherite obsession with competition as the spur to efficiency.
It is bad enough that authorities outside London and the South East are told that their subsidies are so high that there is no money for investment. But to add that franchise replacement will provide an opportunity to ‘increase efficiency through vigorous competition', suggests that the SRA has forgotten nothing and learnt nothing.
Already the SRA has six franchises on a direct financial drip feed. This was the result of the bidding bubble surrounding the last remaining franchises to be let. This saw over-optimistic efficiency gains being assumed in unrealistic subsidy profiles for the Regional franchises in an orgy of unrestrained competition.
Bid fever ruled and even with the subsequent unprecedented sustained economic growth franchises have failed. Apparently the SRA wants more of the same to cut costs in the regions.
Equally, according to the Strategic Plan the SRA sees greater competition and contestability as one of the ‘tests' which will show whether future reforms are taking industry in the right directions. This test will apply to operation, maintenance and investment with the aim of increasing the scope for competition between suppliers and for contestability in infrastructure development.
So what happened to alliances and joined up thinking. And those in the City contemplating innovative proposals for infrastructure developments should remember who was responsible for bidding for the Northern Line new trains deal at London Underground, when BREL as was, put forward an innovative proposal, saw it put out to open tender, only to be won by GEC Alsthom.
And we are also a little concerned by Richard Bowkers assertion that the Railways problems are all down top bad management, rather than the structure and contractual nature of the railway. He claims that contracts don't run the railway, people do. True, but the structure can help or hinder their efforts. And Managers like Chris Green have not become suddenly less effective overnight.
Amen to that I want to see fewer accountants, fewer lawyers and fewer consultants, instead I want to see more engineers, more operators, more project managers and especially more young graduates, apprentices and school leavers joining and industry with a future. Richard Bowker |
In his forword Richard Bowker says ‘We have to rediscover the service ethos and an accountable delivery culture, rediscover industry wide investment planning and rediscover how to train, manage and motivate our people so that the team works together. like an efficient machine. That sound suspiciously like a call to rediscover an integrated railway. That makes the quest for the Holy Grail look like a stroll in the park, but it might help if you came out of the closet and used the BR words openly. Only teasing!