The new franchise agreement and the subsequent COVID related financial restrictions and training backlog has exposed the weaknesses in the management. The Franchise Agreement, a Wilkinson special (honed to run on near minimum resource levels), set an agenda that subsequent events have blown apart.
When are the DfT going to learn? Thameslink, TPE, LNWR, Avanti & others, all let with little to no resilience in resource levels so when it falls apart, it really falls apart.
With the wrong management in charge, it rapidly becomes a morale destroyer and the staff start to ease off or go. Then the very worst thing you can do is then try to over optimise the remainder. That sends you rapidly into a downward spiral.
Put in some DfT financial and other controls and it needs a particular skill from the MD & others to get the TOC on an upward path. That seems to have lacking in Avanti and instead we have alleged staff conspiracy theories being aired in public.
If it does go OLR, it shouldn’t take the new TOC directors too long to effect the changes required to restore some staff morale.
It's genuinely a perfect storm.
Franchise handovers are tough at the best of times but going from a Virgin culture (embedded since privatisation) to a First culture is quite a stark change. Not only that, VT were running on short-term extensions with minimal investments and continual sweating of assets. The staff and management were used to more of the same and ill-equipped for a huge change programme. Stations were in a poor state of repair (and still are) and the trains knackered.
Then take the franchising model (as was). The nature of business cases is that they yield the greatest returns when done at the start of a franchise. Hence, you get an overwhelming amount of projects running concurrently, which Avanti / ex-VT weren't ready for.
On top of this, you have a delayed rolling stock cascade and some of the new trains not coming out to the right standard (e.g. water not working). There's the traction training that goes with this too, which has put strain on resourcing.
Then you have the huge challenge of Covid, which put delays in training and led to swathes of staff unavailability. It also delayed new staff uniforms, which only just recently rolled out, and even then there was the 'see-through' shirt saga.
Following covid, you then have the EFA and wider industry reform which has caused IR issues. Not least a pay freeze for two years and lots of staff not being accepted for VSS.
Then there's a bucketload of other issues. Fewer staff than envisaged when the franchise started. Lots of driver retirements at key depots and an aging driver demographic. Introduction of the three classes. Strikes on neighbouring TPE.
It looks like staff goodwill has completely dissapated now, which shouldn't be a huge surprise. I'm just not sure that OLR can magically solve some of these issues.
