Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
MR CHRIS
AUSTIN AND
MR DAVID
HIBBS
10 NOVEMBER 2004
Q280 Mr Donohoe: But it is madness to
have withdrawn something that was pulling in so much extra money.
Mr Austin: If you have not got
the money in the budget you cannot pay it.
Q281 Mr Donohoe: Who was responsible
for the part of that budget being withdrawn? Was it the Government,
is that what you are saying?
Mr Austin: In 2002, yes it was,
it was a reduction in the agreed budget. Subsequently, with the
rise in industry costs generally, it has not been possible to
restore that; consequently, we have tried to reflect that in the
development of this strategy which is all about making better
use of the subsidy that currently goes into the railway, recognising
it is very high, rather than looking for extra grants over and
on top of that. We have worked through that with the partnerships
and we are looking for a positive way forward to develop on that
basis.
Q282 Mr Donohoe: Are you going to reintroduce
these grants, is that what you are saying?
Mr Austin: No, what I am saying
is that it is actually about making better use of the existing
subsidy that goes through without looking for additional grant
in the form of Rail Passenger Partnership funding.
Q283 Mr Donohoe: Even where the evidence
is so overwhelming as to the advantages that there are with these
grants, you are taking that decision, you are not going to change
it. Where you have a budget of some £50,000 and are able
to key in another £200,000, you do not think that is a good
grant to continue with, is that what you are saying?
Mr Austin: I think it is a good
grant if you have the money to spend; if you do not have the money
you cannot spend it.
Q284 Mr Donohoe: I am not going to continue.
How is the integration of bus and rail services going to be achieved
in a deregulated bus market?
Mr Austin: As I said to Miss McIntosh,
there have been a lot of examples of good practice where that
is happening already on a voluntary basis.
Q285 Mr Donohoe: How is it possible to
do it if you have deregulated buses? We heard earlier from the
LGA that it was not possible for them to interfere, other than
the fact that there was 15% it would appear they are subsidising.
Mr Austin: I think the picture
is mixed around the country. There are plenty of examples where
buses are running in competition with rail along certain corridors,
there are plenty of other examples where buses are effectively
acting as feeders to the railway, even in the sections which are
the 85% that they mentioned which are deregulated. There are lots
of examples of feeder services and through ticketing and, as I
mentioned, the virtual branch line example. Clearly, we would
like to see, particularly where both services are supported and
subsidised, much closer integration with bus acting as a feeder
to rail.
Q286 Mr Donohoe: What approaches have
you made to Government to have some consideration made to change
this situation in terms of the deregulated bus industry and how
it affects and impinges in rural areas?
Mr Austin: I think through the
development of the strategy, and I know there have been discussions
between the Department of Transport and the DTI on this. I do
not know the detail and I have not been involved in that, so it
would be wrong to comment on that.
Q287 Mr Stringer: I was not clear when
you were talking about the Government withdrawing grant whether
the Government withdrew grant in an earmarked fashion and they
specified where the money had to come from, or you made the choice
internally within the SRA from the reduced amount of money.
Mr Austin: Yes, the Government
certainly did not withdraw the grant, what they did was reduce
the amount available in our budget for the subsequent two years
and we had to reflect that in a reduced expenditure total. So
it was our choice, but we had to take out things which were still
at that stage discretionary expenditure, not committed in a franchising
contract for example. The only areas that were left to us at that
stage were spend on project development, spend on freight grants
and spend on Rail Passenger Partnership funding, and we made reductions
in all three areas.
Q288 Mrs Ellman: In your consultation
paper you say you are going to tackle "standards creep";
what does that mean, which standards are you going to change?
Mr Austin: It is a phrase which
has been used commonly within the industry to denote the gradual
increase and extension of standards. What we are trying to do
is to make them far more specific and appropriate to the nature
of the lines served. In general the lines we are talking about
here are low speed, often with low frequency services, relatively
small numbers of passengers and, clearly, the standards applicable
to those lines, as with light rail and metro systems, may be very
different from those of the high speed main lines. That is the
basic point we are trying to make in this, it is about the appropriate
nature of the standards and specifying them accordingly.
Q289 Mrs Ellman: What about community
rail schemes, is that where you are looking at reducing standards?
Mr Austin: Yes, they would form
part of the specification for the lines that we are proposing
to designate as community rail lines.
Q290 Mrs Ellman: Would you want to see
that as a new standard or a derogation?
Mr Austin: We canvassed the possibility
of that in the consultation paper, really on the basis of analogy
with the standards that were developed for light rail operating
on the mainline network in the Sunderland project. In that case
Network Rail and the Rail Standards and Safety Board developed
a number of derogations from the mainline standards, as Mr Jack
described earlier on today, and at the end of the process grouped
them altogether into a single derogation in relation to light
rail for the trains operating on the main line. What we are saying
is that something similar may be possible for community rail
standards.
Q291 Mrs Ellman: You are undertaking
a national survey of passengers on community rail lines, what
have you found from that?
Mr Hibbs: We do not actually do
a National Passenger Survey specifically on community railway
lines, we do a National Passenger Survey across the whole of the
mainline network.
Q292 Chairman: It would be a good idea
to do it, would it not, if you have this specific responsibility?
Mr Hibbs: We set up the National
Passenger Survey in order to allow comparisons between train operating
companies because, if you remember, after privatisation there
was no way to compare passengers' perceptions of individual train
operators, so we set up a survey that allowed that particular
comparison to be made. That survey does cover community rail services,
those that are likely to be designated as community rail services,
so the passengers' views are actually reported back through the
train operating companies that run those services, whether it
is Wales and Borders or Central Trains. We have no current plans
for a specific national survey for community railways, partly
because the philosophy is actually about tailoring the services
on community railways to the requirements of their communities,
their local passengers, so we are not sure that a national survey
would pick that up, I think we would probably prefer to focus
research efforts into specific needs on a specific line.
Q293 Mrs Ellman: Would those specific
lines include community railways?
Mr Hibbs: Yes, they would, and
what I am suggesting is that we think that it would probably be
better to target any research into passengers on those lines to
the specific employment of those lines; something that is of importance
on the St Ives branch, for example, which carries a lot of tourists,
a lot of park and ride passengers, may not be appropriate to people
on the Watford to St Albans line.
Q294 Chairman: So you can assure us that
you have a plan to do multi-faceted research into community railways
because of their very flexibility, is that what you can assure
us? I want to know—I mean, it is no good saying it might
be a good idea because they will not show up in your national
survey to do a survey of community rail services. All I am saying
is, are you telling me it is our intention to—forgive me
if I over-emphasise—undertake a survey of community rail
projects? That is all I am asking.
Mr Hibbs: It is our intention
that for each line there will be a prospectus which sets out what
is intended to happen on that line. In some cases it may be sensible
to back that up with passenger research; we have no intention
at present to come out and commission a whole new survey for each
of the lines. We do intend to carry on with the National Passenger
Survey which picks up the views of passengers as part of the train
operating company that operates those lines.
Q295 Mrs Ellman: But you are not ruling
out having specific surveys on lines if it seems to be appropriate.
Mr Hibbs: No, definitely not,
absolutely not. It would be very appropriate and we have actually
been talking to at least one of the partnerships about the possibility
of a survey of their particular needs up in the North East.
Q296 Mrs Ellman: So you would be amenable
to doing that in areas where it seemed appropriate.
Mr Hibbs: Funding is another issue
but, yes, certainly.
Q297 Mrs Ellman: What do you mean, funding
is another issue?
Mr Hibbs: We have no funding specifically
available for that task.
Q298 Mrs Ellman: What does this assurance
mean then if you are saying you would not rule out, you might
be amenable to doing it?
Mr Austin: What we can do is pull
together a lot of existing research and data from the train operators
and, indeed, data and survey work carried out by the local authorities,
because very often you find that by pulling that together you
get the picture, without having to commission additional surveys,
and that is what we would aim to do.
Q299 Mrs Ellman: So in appropriate areas
you would take responsibility for conducting research, is that
what you are saying?
Mr Austin: Yes, we would have
to do that in the way that we develop the plans individually for
each route and consult on them, yes.
| 
