Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH 1998
Mr Jamie Mortimer, Treasury Officer of Accounts,
further examined.
60. But for general theoretical terms, not
necessarily reactive, are you going to set out and define what
is a minor breach, what is a serious breach, what is a significant
breach?
(Mr O'Brien) The response to how
can you tell is that we have as a matter of statute to keep a
franchising directors' register which lists them all out, it is
a matter of public record and they are available.
61. So there is a list?
(Mr O'Brien) Yes.
62. Could we maybe have a note of that?
I would be interested to see the definition of what is minor and
what is significant. [6]
(Mr O'Brien) Sure.
Mr Page
63. Mr O'Brien, the Chairman and Mr Wardle
have asked the question which I believe lies at the nub of the
NAO's Report and their concerns and that is, namely, how far and
how right is it for the Franchise Director to rely upon the information
coming from the two sources. So I would like to ask one question
and as far as I am concerned it will help put the whole thing
into context. Could you say whether you feel the overall level
of service being provided now is better or worse compared with
what it was under BR before privatisation? Could you say the same
about subsidies and could you say the same about the number of
passengers being carried?
(Mr O'Brien) The objective response
to each of those objectives is, first of all, in terms of the
number of passengers being carried, in the last 12 months it has
gone up by about eight per cent across the network; in terms of
the number of train miles now running on the network, that has
gone up by approximately five per cent in the last year; in terms
of the amount of money which the taxpayer is putting towards the
subsidy of the passenger railways, as you can see in the accounts
this year it is £1.8 billion. If you take out an item which
is in one year and not the next you reduce that by £75 million,
so you would come to a comparative figure of £1.73 million
for the year in question. This year I would expect our figures
to be about £300 million less than that and the following
year less than that again.
64. I was asking back compared to when BR
were running it.
(Mr O'Brien) The year in question
here was the transitional year when British Rail were running
the services for a lot of the year. Within that year, if you compare
the amounts that BR were looking to the government for subsidy
for, the services which were privatised, there is a saving, as
reported in the C&AG's Report, of £30 million and in
the following year it goes down hundreds of millions year by year.
In terms of service being provided since privatisation and just
to give you a place to start from, I am assuming as a base point
April 1996, in the first year, the year in question here, the
level of service in terms of punctuality and reliability increased
quite dramatically. In the last six months the level of punctuality
has actually slipped back.
65. My question was related to when BR was
running it in its entirety without the transitional periods.
(Mr O'Brien) In terms of finance,
it is cheaper. In terms of the service being provided at the moment,
the services are more reliable. By reliable I mean when you get
to the station there is a train there to get you to your destination
and by punctual I mean you get to the other end when you expect
to. In the first few months after privatisation that did increase
significantly but it has dropped back in the last six months,
but it is still above the levels prior to privatisation.
Maria Eagle
66. I want to follow up on an aspect of
that to ask you a little bit about GEMINI. I will not ask you
to define it and I have not looked up any dictionary definitions,
but this seems to be an element of your assurance that is controlled
totally by the franchise companies, by the companies who you are
supposed to be regulating. That is correct, is it not?
(Mr O'Brien) Yes, that is correct.
67. And you rely on GEMINI not for details
on punctuality and whether or not the trains are running on time
or there are enough of them but for looking at quality of service
indicators.
(Mr O'Brien) The system is a safety
critical system.
68. A what?
(Mr O'Brien) It is important for
safety. It tracks how long trains are running for and it is part
of their maintenance programme because they have to be maintained
in a certain period of time. We use the system to identify which
trains are running with shorter trains than we are expecting to
get.
69. So GEMINI is not a system that is being
run by the companies to check on the quality of service, whether
or not particular services have got First Class compartments,
buffets, heating, it does not do that. I was led to believe from
reading the notes to the accounts that it had something to do
with the quality of service. You are telling me it is all to do
with the safety of trains. Its objectives, the reason why it is
run, are to do with safety not to do with quality indicators?
(Mr O'Brien) It measures how often
trains are running. It also measures how long trains are.
70. Is that not what TRUST does? You rely
on TRUST to tell you how many trains are running and how punctual
they are, do you not?
(Mr O'Brien) We rely on the TRUST
data to give us the information about punctuality. We rely on
the GEMINI information to tell us about the capacity of trains
and how long trains are.
71. But when you say "capacity"
what do you mean-the number of passengers who can get on it?
(Mr O'Brien) How many carriages
there are on the train. The reason we use this system is that,
as part of their franchise--
72. Because it is there and you do not have
any systems of your own?
(Mr O'Brien) No. The reason we use
it at all is that there is an incentive. As part of our performance
incentives the operator has to provide trains of a certain length.
If they do not they pay us money. We do not pay them money, they
pay us money, and the system we use to extract that information
is the GEMINI system.
73. When in paragraph 23 in the notes to
the accounts the C&AG says that "GEMINI provides OPRAF
with data on train capacity and facilities", what is that
word "facilities" referring to?
(Mr O'Brien) I believe that what
it refers to is maintenance facilities. [7]
74. So you have lots of information from
Railtrack through TRUST and from the franchise operators themselves
through GEMINI that tells you about how many trains run, how many
carriages there on trains, whether they are punctual or not and
what the maintenance and safety procedures are?
(Mr O'Brien) GEMINI is how long
the trains--
75. How do you assure yourself of the quality
of service that is being offered on these trains?
(Mr O'Brien) GEMINI, as I said,
relates to the length of the trains.
76. How do you know that there is no buffet
on the train and how do you know that the heating is not on or
the lighting is not on?
(Mr O'Brien) You will not find that
information from the GEMINI system or the TRUST system.
77. How do you find out that information
as the Franchising Director?
(Mr O'Brien) The obligation that
the operator has is to provide the level of service specified
in the franchise agreement.
78. Are you telling me that there is nothing
in the franchise agreement about comfort for passengers and level
of service, the things that somebody who gets on a train and travels
on it would expect?
(Mr O'Brien) No, we do not specify,
we let the customers do that. We let the customers specify what
is important to them.
79. You do not think that is important to
you as the Franchising Director?
(Mr O'Brien) No, I think it is important
that I let the customers tell me what they think is important
rather than my telling them.
6 Note: See Evidence, Appendix 1, page 22 (PAC 236). Back
7
Note by Witness: GEMINI provide OPRAF with incentivised train
details relating to capacity. These are the type of stock and
class used, the number of units forming the train and the number
of seats on that train. GEMINI also contains details relating
to maintenance. "Facilities" also relates to the class
of train. Back
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