Virgin Trains East Coast franchise to end 24 June 2018 and is temporarily re-nationalised

[laseandre]

Really? It's a double decker every 5-8 minutes as usual here on a Sunday and every hour throughout the night - even services on Christmas Day.

No bus subsidies here either. Just the usual pensioner pot though..

That is certainly the case in some areas, but those are few and far between - my local route, run by First Glasgow, has been progressively cut back from 10 minute frequencies to 12, to 15, along with less buses on Sundays, over the last few years. The evening and Sunday buses are only on because SPT support them! Compare that to the situation in London, where the buses are reasonably priced, frequent and serve a lot of the city, I think I know which I'd rather have...

 

[John R]

Is that not worse then , as in effect they could sell them for a penny each for after the change over and not lose anything

And they would gain nothing, except being barred from future franchises by virtue of their actions. (I would imagine there are terms in the agreement that cover how they act in the run up to the end of a franchise which they are not going to retain.)

 

[Kettledrum]

That short-term Intercity East Coast train operator report document was an interesting read!

It'll be interesting to see what LNER's booking engine will look like etc.

And it will also be interesting to see what happens to the proposed Huddersfield, Middlesbrough and extra Lincoln services now.

VTEC did do brilliant job of refurbishing the interiors of their HST & Class 91 sets though!

Page 6 was a surprise to me having read gripe after gripe about VTEC on this forum. It says: "VTEC has achieved passenger satisfaction rates of more than 90 per cent for the last two years, which is one of the highest satisfaction rates in the rail industry"

Perhaps passengers are making this rating based on the interiors, rather than the booking engine, the inferior rewards scheme and the poor availability of cheaper tickets.
....and of course the people not being surveyed are the people who are choosing not to travel with VTEC or choosing to go elsewhere such as resorting to air travel instead.

 

[ainsworth74]

It says: "VTEC has achieved passenger satisfaction rates of more than 90 per cent for the last two years, which is one of the highest satisfaction rates in the rail industry"

It's worth recalling that the satisfaction survey is very much a snapshot and you're asked to talk about the journey you're making on the day that you're given the survey not your overall impressions. It would also be interesting to compare them to rates achieved by East Coast, National Express East Coast and GNER...

 

[Agent_Squash]

Are they? Outside London ridership is in freefall, evening and Sunday services are but a hazy memory, and the whole thing is being propped up with ENCTS money.

They're also not franchises. Except in London, where all the revenue risk is with TfL.

I live in South Cumbria, an area which certainly isn’t a financial gift for a bus company. But ridership is growing (with many people switching from the train to bus), evening serviced are very much still a thing (last service around midnight) and a Sunday service!

Seems your willing to peddle anything to push your pro nationalisation agenda.

 

[yorksrob]

I live in South Cumbria, an area which certainly isn’t a financial gift for a bus company. But ridership is growing (with many people switching from the train to bus), evening serviced are very much still a thing (last service around midnight) and a Sunday service!

Seems your willing to peddle anything to push your pro nationalisation agenda.

I arrived at Windermere to find the single bus fare to conniston was ten pounds. Anybody who dares to defend this state of affairs is peddling a pro-privatisation agenda.

 

[Agent_Squash]

I arrived at Windermere to find the single bus fare to conniston was ten pounds. Anybody who dares to defend this state of affairs is peddling a pro-privatisation agenda.

For me, it’s £4.40 for a more frequent bus service than the £3.80 for the train. But to say the bus system is completely failing is very much of the mark.

 

[ainsworth74]

Might I gently suggest that the parlous state of buses outside of some key urban areas is perhaps slightly off-topic for a thread about the collapse and future of the East Coast Franchise? We do have a dedicated Bus Forum for all your bus related needs

 

[ainsworth74]

For the avoidance of doubt bus discussion is off-topic on this thread and any such further posts will be deleted as being off-topic. Please use an appropriate thread in the Buses & Coaches sub-forum for any further discussion about the provision of bus services and the fares structures of those services.

 

[FQTV]

Page 6 was a surprise to me having read gripe after gripe about VTEC on this forum. It says: "VTEC has achieved passenger satisfaction rates of more than 90 per cent for the last two years, which is one of the highest satisfaction rates in the rail industry"

Perhaps passengers are making this rating based on the interiors, rather than the booking engine, the inferior rewards scheme and the poor availability of cheaper tickets.
....and of course the people not being surveyed are the people who are choosing not to travel with VTEC or choosing to go elsewhere such as resorting to air travel instead.

It's worth recalling that the satisfaction survey is very much a snapshot and you're asked to talk about the journey you're making on the day that you're given the survey not your overall impressions. It would also be interesting to compare them to rates achieved by East Coast, National Express East Coast and GNER...

It's perhaps also relevant to note that the National Rail Passenger Survey is intended to allow comparison between all operating companies which, in itself, is a rather unsophisticated aspiration as it's clearly not the case that Northern is comparable to GWR.

However, in order to aim for this flat comparison, the questions are largely limited to those which can be asked of any passenger on any service. Accordingly, the questions are limited to 'Station Facilities' and 'Train Facilities'.

https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/r...assenger-survey-nrps-autumn-2017-main-report/

There's nothing about (for example) seat reservations, catering, websites etc., as these are or were not common to all operators when the questionnaire was designed, and therefore the 'overall satisfaction' figures could or would be incomparable across all operators.

Having said that, they do ask about on board WiFi, which is not only still not universal, but is probably only relevant to a (growing) percentage of the respondents.

With regard to the 'short report' that the DfT published to support its decision to terminate Virgin Trains East Coast's contract, I finally sat and read it in full yesterday.

IMHO it goes well beyond what could even be termed an example of confirmation bias; the lack of rigour in the justification of the figures presented probably wouldn't pass muster in an undergraduate thesis, and the attention to detail in some of the language used and references made is, I'd say, poor.

It looks to me, at best, as though it's been written to make what was a politically-difficult but ultimately necessary decision look as if the two alternatives were 'finely balanced' and that Virgin Trains East Coast are absolutely awesome in every way apart from their use of a calculator or, at worst, the report's use of questionably useful data such as NRPS results and highly-questionable financial 'assumptions' explains why the DfT is considered by many to be so poor at assessing franchise bids.

Or, I suppose, that the whole franchising system is so fatally flawed, unfit-for-purpose and can't be made to work without fudging things.

 

[wellhouse]

Page 6 was a surprise to me having read gripe after gripe about VTEC on this forum. It says: "VTEC has achieved passenger satisfaction rates of more than 90 per cent for the last two years, which is one of the highest satisfaction rates in the rail industry"

Back in the day, I recall GNER suffered poor PPM figures, but the highest passenger satisfaction rates. The high level of passenger service more than compensated for slack timekeeping.

Not sure I'd agree with the same balance for VTEC.

More to the point; how long will the stocks of 'Hop On Board' ale last, either in the 330ml First Class or 500ml Cafe Bar bottles?

 

[FQTV]

More to the point; how long will the stocks of 'Hop On Board' ale last, either in the 330ml First Class or 500ml Cafe Bar bottles?

LNER could perhaps get Rudgate Brewery to continue to supply it with a different label.

Or introduce a full range of Rail Ales. Perhaps:

Station Porter
PiLsNER
Branson’s Bitter

 

[47271]

Never mind the beer, more to the point, when will we finally be set free from the ultimate VTEC atrocity that is the 'James Martin gourmet' sausage roll?

They were still seen in abundance on a King's Cross-Edinburgh train on Thursday afternoon, I'm surprised that we were able to exceed 100mph due to the dead weight carried. I fear a massive frozen stockpile of them somewhere and that they'll outlive us all.

Dear God, LNER please take note...

 

[IanXC]

Never mind the beer, more to the point, when will we finally be set free from the ultimate VTEC atrocity that is the 'James Martin gourmet' sausage roll?

They were still seen in abundance on a King's Cross-Edinburgh train on Thursday afternoon, I'm surprised that we were able to exceed 100mph due to the dead weight carried. I fear a massive frozen stockpile of them somewhere and that they'll outlive us all.

Dear God, LNER please take note...

Well. I for one think those Sausage Rolls are the best on the rails, tight margin to out do Greater Anglia's but the do!

 

[Tom B]

A week ago I had the misfortune to buy something claiming a resemblance to a cheese and tomato toastie - volcanic lava in a soggy floppy slice of bread perhaps. I challenge anyone to claim that this is better catering than the famous BR sandwiches!

 

[thenorthern]

With rail franchises how are the winners decided and what is the most important thing? Is it how much they offer in premiums to the government or how much they will improve services?

I know with ITV companies it used to be a mixture of premiums paid to the treasury and the quality of the programmes planned were the deciding factors in who was awarded an ITV franchise. Margaret Thatcher however didn't like this system and changed it to whoever wins the most wins although after pressure from David Mellor this was changed so that bids had to pass a quality and business plan threshold to stop unrealistic bids winning a franchise. This created the odd situation where Central Television which was the 2nd largest company realised that they were unopposed and only bid £2000 per year while Carlton Television bid £43m (a huge amount of money in 1991) to outbid Thames Television for the London Weekday franchise. Ironically though Sir Richard Branson was part of the CPV-TV bids for ITV franchises in 1991 although in all the areas that CPV-TV bid (Anglia, London Weekday and Southern England) it was disqualified for not planning enough quality programming.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

It's perhaps also relevant to note that the National Rail Passenger Survey is intended to allow comparison between all operating companies which, in itself, is a rather unsophisticated aspiration as it's clearly not the case that Northern is comparable to GWR.

However, in order to aim for this flat comparison, the questions are largely limited to those which can be asked of any passenger on any service. Accordingly, the questions are limited to 'Station Facilities' and 'Train Facilities'.

https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/r...assenger-survey-nrps-autumn-2017-main-report/

There's nothing about (for example) seat reservations, catering, websites etc., as these are or were not common to all operators when the questionnaire was designed, and therefore the 'overall satisfaction' figures could or would be incomparable across all operators.

Having said that, they do ask about on board WiFi, which is not only still not universal, but is probably only relevant to a (growing) percentage of the respondents.

With regard to the 'short report' that the DfT published to support its decision to terminate Virgin Trains East Coast's contract, I finally sat and read it in full yesterday.

IMHO it goes well beyond what could even be termed an example of confirmation bias; the lack of rigour in the justification of the figures presented probably wouldn't pass muster in an undergraduate thesis, and the attention to detail in some of the language used and references made is, I'd say, poor.

It looks to me, at best, as though it's been written to make what was a politically-difficult but ultimately necessary decision look as if the two alternatives were 'finely balanced' and that Virgin Trains East Coast are absolutely awesome in every way apart from their use of a calculator or, at worst, the report's use of questionably useful data such as NRPS results and highly-questionable financial 'assumptions' explains why the DfT is considered by many to be so poor at assessing franchise bids.

Or, I suppose, that the whole franchising system is so fatally flawed, unfit-for-purpose and can't be made to work without fudging things.

I agree, it appears to have been hastily written and poorly considered. Many of the claims seek to justify themselves by their mere assertion. For example, the cost of rebranding is stated as a negative for OLR but they ignore the fact that this would have to be done for the PPP in 2020 at the latest anyway.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

With rail franchises how are the winners decided and what is the most important thing? Is it how much they offer in premiums to the government or how much they will improve services?

There's a points system, with "value for money" high on the list but not the only factor.
Quality now has a rating, and also deliverability, and I think "vision" comes into it too.
There have been several franchise awards where the winner was not the highest bidder in money terms.
The judging system is supposed to be "blind", with the assessors not aware of who bid what until the "final reveal".
There's very little scope for gerrymandering the result, but plenty for bungling the arithmetic along the way (as in 2012).

 

[mpthomson]

...or that it was cheaper to pay out than fight it, which is what one CCG pretty much said.

It cost one CCG £328,000. This directly affects patients, who won't receive treatment because that money had gone. He sued six CCGs. All from his tax-free baddie's lair in the Carribbean. I don't think the words to describe that behaviour, essentially stealing money from sick kids, can be used on a family website. Remember that Virgin Care is one of the few Virgin companies that he still owns outright.

.

Then the CCGs should have followed the procurement rules correctly. Them paying out over something like this just about guarantees that they didn't follow them, it's too important a process to set the precedent to other external providers of paying out 'just because' and CCGs are generally hopeless at this kind of negotiation because they're managed by GPs with no knowledge of procurement/contracting (though there are some allegedly skilled people within the regional Commissioning Support Units for that purpose).

Just because you don't like him doesn't mean that he shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else and to expect that government agencies act lawfully and can be held to account if they don't. How much tax do you suppose Virgin companies and all their employees pay in the UK? 'Tax free baddies' lair' really has no place in an adult conversation about this.

 

[cholsey-choose]

Then the CCGs should have followed the procurement rules correctly. Them paying out over something like this just about guarantees that they didn't follow them, it's too important a process to set the precedent to other external providers of paying out 'just because' and CCGs are generally hopeless at this kind of negotiation because they're managed by GPs with no knowledge of procurement/contracting (though there are some allegedly skilled people within the regional Commissioning Support Units for that purpose).

Just because you don't like him doesn't mean that he shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else and to expect that government agencies act lawfully and can be held to account if they don't. How much tax do you suppose Virgin companies and all their employees pay in the UK? 'Tax free baddies' lair' really has no place in an adult conversation about this.

I think this is all true. But that's all a good reason not to move to this disastrous system in the first place.

 

[mpthomson]

I think this is all true. But that's all a good reason not to move to this disastrous system in the first place.

And I'd agree with that, but the system existing in the way it does now is very much down to the last Labour government, who were far more enthusiastic in terms of introducing the private sector into the NHS (above the significant level that already exists, the vast majority of primary healthcare, ie GP/dental/Pharmacy/Opticians is provided by private companies sub-contracting to the NHS, your local GP practice is not an NHS business except for a very few cases) than any government of any flavour before or since.

 

[cholsey-choose]

And I'd agree with that, but the system existing in the way it does now is very much down to the last Labour government, who were far more enthusiastic in terms of introducing the private sector into the NHS (above the significant level that already exists, the vast majority of primary healthcare, ie GP/dental/Pharmacy/Opticians is provided by private companies sub-contracting to the NHS, your local GP practice is not an NHS business except for a very few cases) than any government of any flavour before or since.

Could not disagree more about Labour. It was the Coalition Health and Social Care Act that introduced the default requirement to put services out to tender, and opened them to any willing/qualified provider. It was the Tories+Lib Dems that switched things from "services are generally public except for a few exceptions" to "more and more things are going private".

 

[mpthomson]

No, the CCGs settled out of court, and have pretty much said it's because it was cheaper to settle than fight. Hardly a ringing endorsement of our legal system.

On checking as I couldn't remember that being said at the time, no they didn't.

What they said (and all that they said about it, as the deal is confidential) is;

Despite the commissioning organisations’ confidence in the process and despite us sharing information to assure Virgin Care Services regarding the procurement process, Virgin Care Services issued court proceedings.

All that shows is that the CCGs didn't fully understand the legal implications of the procurement and thought that they'd done enough. When examined their legal team clearly thought differently so advised them to settle. Nowhere does it say or remotely imply that they settled because it was cheaper to do so even though Virgin were wrong.

It's not in any way an endorsement or otherwise of our legal system.

 

[mpthomson]

Could not disagree more about Labour. It was the Coalition Health and Social Care Act that introduced the default requirement to put services out to tender, and opened them to any willing/qualified provider. It was the Tories+Lib Dems that switched things from "services are generally public except for a few exceptions" to "more and more things are going private".

Services were being put out to tender routinely during the 2000s, for a variety of services (Labour were also by some margin the most enthusiastic promoters of PFI build hospitals, though it was a Major govt idea). I know because I used to tender many of the mental health ones as part of my commissioning role in an NHS PCT from 2005-2010. I also introduced the first any willing provider contract for mental health rehab in the country across a number PCTs, and this happened in 2007/8. My PCT also tendered its home and social care work out to private providers in 2007.

Labour tendered far more than either the coalition or Conservatives on their own and there's a very good piece of King's Fund research from about 4 yrs ago that showed that the amount awarded to the private sector had roughly halved between 2010-2013, though it is slowly rising again.

Anyway this is all off topic!

 

[cholsey-choose]

Services were being put out to tender routinely during the 2000s, for a variety of services. Labour were also by some margin the most enthusiastic promoters of PFI build hospitals, though it was a Major govt idea. I know because I used to tender many of the mental health ones as part of my commissioning role in an NHS PCT from 2005-2010. I also introduced the first any willing provider contract for mental health rehab in the country across a number PCTs, and this happened in 2007/8. My PCT also tendered its home and social care work out to private providers in 2007.

Labour tendered far more than either the coalition or Conservatives on their own and there's a very good piece of King's Fund research from about 4 yrs ago that showed that the amount awarded to the private sector had roughly halved between 2010-2013, though it is slowly rising again.

Anyway this is all off topic!

Agree it's off topic, so this will be my last comment on it. I'm not denying that Labour put out a lot of things to tender, but I think there are two important differences: under Labour, tendering was always a *choice*, whilst the Tories and Lib Dems have set things up so that (without a legal change, at least) the default will be tendering from now on and whenever a CCG doesn't tender something, they leave themselves open to legal challenge. The Coalition have set the course for the future.

I don't know how much will come of this either, but another big difference is that (as you can see from the examples you used) Labour mostly just tendered 'non-core' services -- no major hospital inpatient services. But under the Health and Social Care Act, as I understand it, there is little stopping private hospital companies for bidding for those huge services.

 

[mpthomson]

Agree it's off topic, so this will be my last comment on it. I'm not denying that Labour put out a lot of things to tender, but I think there are two important differences: under Labour, tendering was always a *choice*, whilst the Tories and Lib Dems have set things up so that (without a legal change, at least) the default will be tendering from now on and whenever a CCG doesn't tender something, they leave themselves open to legal challenge. The Coalition have set the course for the future.

I don't know how much will come of this either, but another big difference is that (as you can see from the examples you used) Labour mostly just tendered 'non-core' services -- no major hospital inpatient services. But under the Health and Social Care Act, as I understand it, there is little stopping private hospital companies for bidding for those huge services.

Struggling to see how mental health inpatient services (which is what my contract was about) aren't classed as 'core'... they're certainly horrifically expensive to provide, for anyone. Incidentally one of the things that is quickly discovered when you tender NHS services is that very rarely is it that the NHS offers the best outcomes, value for money, patient experience etc, and that's also been true when contracts are monitored. If it's cheaper for the taxpayer, free at the point of patient use, and offers better patient outcomes and experience then private sector should be used (but only if it meets those criteria for a given service).

Private sector companies (I've worked for some of the best known) have no interest in large, or even smaller, general and district hospitals as 'general health providers in that sense', they've neither the premises, staffing or expertise to run them and the NHS does this very well comparatively.

 

[transmanche]

What will West coast be called if virgin lose out ?
Abellio stole the LNWR rather than retain London Midland

LMS is still available

Actually, the DfT registered LMS and London Midland & Scottish as trademarks, less than a month after registering LNER.

Source: https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmowner/page/search?id=501407&domain=1

 

[Tetchytyke]

How much tax do you suppose Virgin companies and all their employees pay in the UK?

Virgin companies? Bugger all. Virgin Care didn't pay a single penny of tax, despite multi-million profits and multi-millions more being offshored in "management fees.

Employees' tax is irrelevant.

The CCGs said it was cheaper to pay out. I believe them. If Branson disagreed with the procurement decision he'd have judicially reviewed it rather than accepting a payoff.

Brandson took the money from the CCGs and offshored it. This is money that was meant to help sick children. What sort of scumbaf does that?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Incidentally one of the things that is quickly discovered when you tender NHS services is that very rarely is it that the NHS offers the best outcomes, value for money, patient experience etc, and that's also been true when contracts are monitored.

Do they? Really? Crapita took over an excellent GP surgery in Essex and got it put into special measures within 18 months.

Private providers also pick and choose the easy bits. We all know this.

I see in my field that the private providers get better scores because they gatekeep. They take the easy bits. Take IAPT. They take the counselling and CBT contracts and get good outcome scores because those people as easy and simple to treat. The NHS trust gets the people who are difficult to treat. Needless to say the targets don't reflect this.

The idea that private companies are automatically more efficient is 100% pure horse poo. But the management consultants and procurement lawyers who take massive wedges of cash naturally say otherwise. Why wouldn't they? They're the ones trousering hundreds of millions from it. Keep the gravy train rolling. Keep the bubble inflated with hubris.

Its this hubris that got VTEC into trouble.

 

[mpthomson]

Employees' tax is irrelevant.

The CCGs said it was cheaper to pay out. I believe them. If Branson disagreed with the procurement decision he'd have judicially reviewed it rather than accepting a payoff.

Brandson took the money from the CCGs and offshored it. This is money that was meant to help sick children. What sort of scumbaf does that?

It was cheaper to pay out because they thought or knew they'd lose if it went to court. That's why they reached a settlement, because the procurement setup either wasn't equitable or wasn't followed correctly, not that they knew Virgin were in the wrong. I suspect that the £328k is the cost to Virgin of the bid (in terms of admin for it) and for launching the legal challenge and that they didn't end up in profit from it, it's a very odd amount otherwise.

Either of those scenarios means that it's the CCG's fault. They have to follow the law and due process just like anyone else does, whatever the system.