Subcontracting part of a franchise

[BantamMenace]

In light of the recent bad press around the cancellation rate on the Ormskirk branch I was wondering about whether a franchise holder could subcontract our part of their franchise commitment such as the running of a simple branch like this right up to Northern subletting the entirety of their network in the North East north of York for example.

What rules/laws are there currently in place to allow/prevent currently?

How practical would it be for a start up to procure some off lease stock and recruit the required operational staff in order to fulfil a service?

Is there any desire to partition parts of a larger franchise off, I imagine some local councils for example would like a tighter control over the smaller services in their local area?

What other services are candidates for this sort of operational model?

I’m a believer that letting smaller chunks for longer periods would be of great benefit such as Chiltern has proven.

 

[deltic]

Isn’t the Stourbridge Branch effectively sub contracted and haven’t some of the Loco hauled services been run by third parties on behalf of some TOCs?

 

[The Planner]

Chiltern tried it on I thought with WSMR and got burnt by the ORR for it?

 

[pdeaves]

Chiltern tried it on I thought with WSMR and got burnt by the ORR for it?

The reason, I believe, was a combination of the income going to a non-franchised TOC (and thus messes up the DfT's money-go-round) and that they hadn't asked permission first (that may have been granted, but they didn't follow the correct process).
I think!

 

[pdeaves]

Isn’t the Stourbridge Branch effectively sub contracted

Yes, to Pre Metro Operations, all specified in the franchise agreement, though I cannot find the WMT one on the gov.uk website.