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For the ultimate example of how the former Transport Ministry has succumbed to cyncicism, opportunitism, or, lets us be charitable- good old fashioned incompetence, consider the benchmarks against whioch Tramsport Sewcretary Stephen Byers invites us to judge his stewardship.
Embarrassing statistics on railways' had been due for release on Friday February 15, we learned on the previous Wednesday. But DTLR's Director of Communications, Martin Sixsmith, had e-mailed his boss, Stephen Byers, to say ‘there is no way I will allow this department to make any substantive announcements next Friday. Princess Margaret is being buried on the day. I will absolutely not allow anything else to be.'
Within 48 hours, DTLR announced that Byers' special adviser Jo Moore of September 11 fame and Sixsmith had both resigned although Sixsmith later denied this.
So what were these damaging statistics, variously reported by the media to be about ‘performance' or ‘safety'? RBI assumed that they must be Public Performance Measure results for Periods 8, 9 and 10 (October 14 to January 5), which are understood to be very poor.
Amazingly, the statement that finally emerged on February 18 contained no data that had not been published already. Instead, Byers announced that he had decided to set ‘benchmarks' so that ‘people can judge how we are doing as we tackle problems caused by decades of under-investment and a botched privatisation.'
On closer examination, however, the benchmark figures published with this statement have clearly been rigged to ensure that improvements by 2005 are close to inevitable. The three carefully crafted indices are supposed to measure:
• Performance based on the PPM
• Safety based on Serious Spads
• Quality based on the average age of passenger coaches.
Starting point for the three indices against which Byers clearly expects his own performance to be assessed before the next general election is June 2001, when he took charge of the newly formed DTLR.
On Performance, the trick is to publish a rolling annual average. The means that the baseline for PPM becomes 77<\#225>>2% of trains arriving ‘on time' between July 1 2000 and June 30 2001 , neatly bracketing the unprecedented post-Hatfield disruption. In the previous couple of years, the rolling annual average PPM had been pretty stable at around 88% <\#208> a more realistic target for 2005, some people might think.
The single Safety index traditionally used in HMRI annual reports is significant train incidents per million train-miles run. By selecting the rolling annual total of Serious Spads (194 to June 30 2001) to represent of the whole range of accident precursors just before the reduction in collision risk due to TPWS started to come through, a big improvement by June 2005 is assured. Note that TPWS will reduce Serious Spads but not less dangerous categories.
As to Quality, the average age of rolling stock at June 30 2001 was not revealed on February 18 because there had been no time to work it out. It is promised on March 18. Given that Mark 1 EMUs must be scrapped by December 31 2004 , and the whole of Virgin's Voyager and Pendolino fleets should enter service within the three-year timeframe, a significant rise in this index is also assured.
Whether Byers will still be in charge of transport in June 2005 is another question