A comment on the Hatfield entry set my thoughts in motion. Rather than go on at length on the comments section (although I did already), I thought I would enlarge here.
There are plenty of myths flying about regarding the industry. One being that Railtrack (subsequently Network Rail) and other privately owned rail companies pay fat salaries to senior executives who put profits before people. This just isn’t true; the fat salaries bit is, just not the callous indifference to the safety of the travelling public. People who work in the industry do so because they believe in what it is trying to achieve – a safe, reliable and affordable system of mass transport. Rail workers are a passionate group of people who want the industry to succeed. And, it is a transport system most of us use ourselves. You might argue with some degree of justification that senior executives are overpaid. But, bear in mind that a failure to achieve will result in instant dismissal. That fat salary cushions the blow. It’s part of the overall bargain. Private or nationalized, the industry would still have to play that game.
The issue of whether people at this level should be held personally liable for catastrophic failure is another matter. Take, for example, Hatfield. To secure a prosecution for manslaughter, it would be necessary to prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that senior executives in Railtrack and Balfour Beatty knew that the track was deteriorating and made a conscious decision – knowing full well the likely outcome of that decision – not to impose a speed restriction. That is not what happened at all. A patrolman discovered the problem and the decision not to impose the speed restriction was made at a fairly low level in Balfour Beatty’s organisation.
At about the same time, senior engineers in both companies were aware of gauge corner cracking and were trying to impose a programme of relaying to compensate. This was dogged with another problem – track access. Planning access to close the line for major relaying involves negotiating with the train operators and the companies who will carry out the work. This can involve delays for a variety of reasons; availability of people and equipment, train timetables and rules of the route agreements are just a couple of the problems faced. So there you have it, deteriorating track that was generally known about at a fairly high level, but not necessarily the degree of deterioration along with a plan to relay that didn’t happen and deteriorating track that was known about in detail at a low level combined with a bad decision.
It would be difficult – if not impossible – to draw a line of responsibility from that point where the decision was made to the boardroom. These people do not make that kind of decision, they make policy. So, do you prosecute the low level decision maker or the policy maker? Perhaps it would be best to first ask why that decision was made.
Following privatization, a penalty regime was set up whereby Railtrack made penalty payments to train operating companies when trains ran late as a result of infrastructure problems. Railtrack recouped some of this from their maintainers. The regime was so severe, that when faced with the decision about imposing speed restrictions now or waiting a few weeks, the person faced with that decision opted to wait rather than risk penalty payments and censure from his managers. If we are to criticize, we should be looking at the people who created that situation. However, before we put them in the dock, we have to ask; would they have been aware that this would be the outcome of their deliberations? And, if we can show that, can we prove it beyond reasonable doubt to a jury?
That is why the prosecutions for manslaughter failed. There was no direct link between the senior executives charged and the decision making on the ground. These charges should never have been brought.
Instead of imposing a blame culture and indulging in media driven witch hunts, we should be seeking to improve the safe systems on our rail industry by improving competence management systems throughout, improving relationships within the industry, making the penalty regime more fair and simplifying the safety systems so that they work rather than tie the industry up in red tape.
OK, we have found one point on which we disagree fundamentally. I believe that to have public utilities and services in private hands is a flawed process by the very nature of how a private company operates. A private company must make more money than operating costs in order to provide shareholders with a dividend and any money left over after that can be put back into improvement of service. I am not saying that companies will not put some money back into this improvement but the amount is drstically reduced from what it might be and the consideration of service is secondary to the consideration of profit.
The position before privatisation was such that Malwinnie knew he was not going to get funding to implement ATP from the cabinet when the plan was to privatise, furthermore the prospected rail companies could not be expected to have such a millstone as to be required to implement ATP upon purchase of franchise. This alone is an absolute travesty however one of the biggest problems this created was that recommendations such as the use of bi-directional lines were dependent on the working of ATP, as such the railway had been set up with ATP in mind but had not reverted to a more cautious system when ATP was shelved.
No-one could say BR was perfect but let’s bear in mind the chronic underfunding to explain at least part of that. Much of the infrastructure of this country’s rail system remains to be upgraded from BR times.
Privatisation was a bad thing and the fragmentation of the infrastructure into various different companies all with their own profits to make and methods of making them was surely one of the biggest lasting catastrophes of the Thatcher era (and heaven knows there have been so many).
I won’t say any more for fear of using all my own material for my queued blog, but I see no reason not to debate further on News and Views.
”’Longrider replies: I’ve changed my mind on the privatisation/nationalisation ideology. Not least because I came from the private sector and have returned there. It is a flawed argument to state that profits are a higher priority than quality of service – the former is directly dependent on the latter. Having worked in both through the transition, I have seen the industry became more streamlined and it has started – albeit slowly – moving towards a better overall system. It is hampered somewhat by the horizontal split that caused unnecessary fragmentation, but the companies concerned are slowly realising that they have to work together. The joint control centres are an indication of this.”’
”’BR was hopelessly inefficient – it was heavily unionised to its detriment. The working practices probably cost more than the dividends paid now to shareholders. It was inappropriate and had to stop. No, it didn’t need to privatise for that to happen, but that it did meant a sharpening up of working practices that was long overdue. Private companies may take money out to pay shareholders – but they will only make a profit if they reinvest. Nationalised ones just squander it in inefficiency I’m afraid.”’