To all intensive purposes, Yes. The Brown report was dissapointing to say the least, and to see pretty much the same people left running the DfT as it is is ridiculous. The current franchising system has been in need of a deccent overhaul for some time, along comes brown with what was billed as one of the most intensive and indepth reviews of the DfT for a long time, and what comes out is essentially a a 'lighter weight' bucket of whitewash. Interestingly, the Transport Select Committee's report was more interesting - although i doubt things such as the tigher control and checking of Emails within the DfT will ever happen.
To quote a comment over on WNXX.
As for what i said - it would appear that the GW Extention, whilst along time coming, just does seem to be a here's an extention, now please go away and run the trains as your told. Whilst at the very least it'll bring some stability in the same wonderful management through the early stages of the GW Modernisation, im personally still not keen on the idea that a a new franchise with potentially more new management arriving into one of the biggest projects the GWML has ever seen in 2015 is a good idea. But hey, the DfT seems to think so!
Unfortunatly, it seems 'the new' but not so new DfT obviously considers that shareholders take that risk in bidding in for a franchise in the first place.
As for NXs Dean Finch hitting out, i'd have thaught that was almost reading on a tight tightrope at the moment, considering the franchise extention currently in operation on nxs sole remaining franchise at C-2-C.
Are you just determined to ignore the point of the Brown report? It was not to look at what went wrong on West Coast - that was what Laidlaw was doing. That was what the MPs on the transport select committee were doing. It was not to point the finger. It was to look at what to do next with franchising. And in that respect he basically takes apart DafT's approach to franchising in the past few years, albeit not in a dramatic blood on the carpet way, which seems to be what you want. That's not how these sort of reports are written, oddly enough.
There are still things going on within DfT as regards internal disciplinary procedures over West Coast, at least one senior official has gone and, as noted above, Peter Wilkinson has arrived with the specific brief of handling franchising. This is a government department, not a football club with a revolving door with a sign saying 'manager' stuck over the top, though you could certainly argue that the constant changes of Transport Secretary, over far too many years, have done nothing to ensure that DfT is a well-run operation, but they are not going to cast out lots of civil servants in one fell swoop over this.
In the case of FGW, I think the DfT will expect them to do a little more than just run the trains, since they have now near enough got a 10-year deal without needing to pay out the scary sums that led to them declining to take up the extension written into the 2006 franchise. Virgin would probably quite happily have carried out until the end of 2014 without the headache of having to work out how to serve Shrewsbury and Blackpool without any extra stock but that's what they are going to have to try to do.
And Patrick McLoughlin's statement on Thursday was very carefully worded so as not to commit him to a definite change of GW operator/management in 2015:
I have also instructed my department to commence negotiations with the existing train operators (First Great Western, First Capital Connect and c2c) with a view to entering into new interim franchise agreements with them. For Essex Thameside and Thameslink, the period of these interim agreements will be determined by the time needed to complete the competitions for the longer-term franchises, and will not exceed 2 years. For Great Western, I intend to negotiate an interim agreement for 2 years and will set out longer-term proposals in the spring.
Essex Thameside and Thameslink "will not exceed two years". Full stop. For GW there is a very clear caveat and given that he also says
having considered the options for the Great Western franchise very carefully, and taken account of Mr Brown’s advice, I have decided to terminate this competition. This is to allow for a more fundamental review of the franchise proposition, recognising that this is a large and complex franchise which will need to manage service delivery whilst the route is electrified and new rolling stock is introduced
and that Brown says
Great Western is a more difficult proposition for the Department as it is seeking to let a long franchise on a high value, complex operation where there will be substantial disruption from major infrastructure programmes in the coming years.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some further form of interim arrangement emerges in the spring to get us from 2015 through to the point that electrification is complete and IEP is running.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 87015
The franchises are not really being extended, legally. There will be a new franchise agreement under single tender arrangements, presuming negotiations are successful.
HH said:
It should be noted that this is illegal. DfT is taking the position that it's in no-one's interest to challenge them. They may be right, but...
I think you'll find it's not illegal. Had they not done so, then there wouldn't have been a West Coast operator beyond early December, since they simply didn't have enough time to get a DOR team together. In those circumstances, to ensure continuity of service, they can take what steps they deem necessary. I haven't read the small print of the Railways Act or relevant European law but it's a fair bet the powers to do this are there somewhere in black and white.
And common sense says that given the length of time a franchising process takes, they couldn't really go for a shorter extension than two years anyway (something that would weigh heavily with any judge) - and Thursday's announcements also make clear two (years) is again the magic number. They realised pretty quickly with West Coast - after near-universal condemnation of the idea - that their initial wheeze of a nine to 13-month interim agreement simply wasn't practical.
And I don't think any of the likely bidders will want to waste yet more money lining the pockets of lawyers on a legal challenge that could take almost as long as the interim agreements run.
