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Suspicions stirred when we read the headline of the press release announcing publication of Network Rail 's business plan for the remaining years of the current five year Control Period 3 which ends on 31 March 2009 . With the Office of Rail Regulation having published its Advice to Ministers under the new Periodic Review process on 28 February, we would have expected NR to have majored on its achievements in reducing costs and improving performance and projections of more of the same. Instead we got ‘£2.4 billion rail expansion programme unveiled'.
With one or two exceptions the national media fell for this exercise in spin, seeing it as the ying to the yang of recent campaigns for relief of overcrowding. It wos the media wot done it'.
It was not helped, and we should have been alerted, by NR's policy, we presume deliberate, of not giving attendees at press conferences a quiet half hour with the documentation to read themselves in. Thus, instead of being primed to ask intelligent questions, you are given a quick run through a power point presentation and expected to go away with the message.
While this works with the national media, tied to deadlines measured in hours, the mills of Modern Railways at least have time to grind. And behind the hyperbole of the press release and the gooey business platitudes of the appalling Business Plan itself there are some worrying figures once you drill down into the tables at the back.
Given the imminence of the High Level Output Specification (HLOS) and Statement of Funds Available (SoFA), with publication required within 95 days' time, one might have expected that Network Rail would have related its financial a performance over the final years of the generous funding needed to bring Railtrack out of administration with the start of what is expected to be a tough settlement for Control Period 4 from a belt-tightening Chancellor.
Instead the spin doctors took over from the accountants. ‘Hundreds' of platforms would be lengthening with this enhancements bonanza. ‘Thousands of car park spaces added. Over 900 schemes in total – too many to list. Yes, but what about debt scheduled to rise to £22 billion with interest at £1bn equal to the subsidy we used to pay for a another growing railway?
And, in passing, we cannot help mentioning that the turnback at Tunbridge Wells station, promised xx years ago, is not allowed for in a forthcoming resignalling. How many of the 900 schemes will really put concrete and steel in the ground by the end of March 2009?
Yet, such spin was totally out of character with the customary cool and considered professionalism of outgoing Chief Executive John Armitt and the equally customary clinical management style of his Deputy and soon-to-be successor Iain Coucher. But perhaps this financial-lite coverage reflected the complacency we have detected in recent announcements from the top of the organisation
At the recent Fourth Friday Club, where he was guest speaker, Mr Armitt seemed relaxed about the way in which the reduction in delay minutes attributable to his company had hit a plateau. Relaxed, that is, compared with Train Operating Company Chief Executives are fizzing about their infrastructure supplier's inability to match their rates of reductions in delay minute.
Similarly, there doesn't seem to be an awareness that maintenance and renewal rates have to be cut, not by percentages but by large fractions – like half or two thirds. Yes the former Rail Regulator's settlement required year on year efficiency savings over CP3 – around 30% over the five years. But the settlement was made in exceptional circumstances.
John Armitt and his team should be given credit for stabilising Network Rail, starting to get costs down and putting a more effectives structure in place. But this is not the same as creating a modern cost effective railway.
It is as if the new team was parachuted onto the sinking cruise liner SS Railtrack. They have painted a new name on the stern, have stopped the worst of the leaks, got the engines working at part power and started pumping out the water.
But despite a job well done, it is only part of the rescue operation. Up in the state rooms on A deck, the Department for Transport and the Treasury can still see billions disappearing into the hull with not a lot to show for it. Down in the cabins, the TOCs still have waterlogged carpets and furniture, and are occasionally chucked out of their cabins for weekends or even weeks at a time for more repair work.
Of course, we may be unduly pessimistic, the HLOS and SoFA may match first time with only a modest year on year improvement in efficiency. But history tells us that the last five years have been the exception in funding of the railways. And getting infrastructure costs back to where we would have been without Hatfield by the end of CP4 is going to require a massive effort.
Let us hope that Iain Coucher, who we rate as the best man for what we believe will be a Herculean cost cutting job, has got the spin out of his system and by the time he takes over in July? Will be back in the hard nosed rigour mode for which he is best known. We wish him well.