Peer review: Ian Brown
Director of Policy, Railfuture
A long-term view of rail’s place in the UK economy and environment, and a clear plan to get there - a worthy
objective and one demanding more consideration before the word ‘strategy’ emerges. Andrew highlights four areas: long-term planning; spending commitments; environmental targets; and integrated strategies; so delving into process from the start. It is process that is becoming the problem in the rail industry, whether it is planning or at the lower tactical project level. More process is unlikely to help.
On the need for a clear plan, the point is made that rail does not operate in a vacuum. This is true, but should not be a reason to promote woolly, uncertain thinking on rail from the start. Rail has latent advantages on the environment, on fuel efficiency, on resilience, and particularly on sustaining the economy and sustainably developing cities. Rail also has the ability to provide capacity. Andrew says this does not always mean more infrastructure, but it usually does - either directly with new projects such as Crossrail, or indirectly by unleashing system capacity with infrastructure or systems improvements at key pinch points, such as at Reading.
As rail’s transport market share is generally low, this begs a very simple question of government: “What does the nation want rail to do at a macro level?”
The questions at this level are about capacity: how much of it and where (into cities or network, for example), and for whom (who wants this and are they in a position to make choices)? As well as transport capacity questions, this is also about the economy and the environment. What does the client at national level want in terms of economic benefits, on jobs and on skills?
The need for a strategy to achieve clearly defined long-term objectives lies with Network Rail. Linking all this into separate five-year Control Periods will not achieve this - that is tactical delivery. Clarity of responsibility is essential here, and Network Rail, as the body responsible for infrastructure, must gear itself up progressively to deliver infrastructure capacity where required in an increasingly cost-effective way. Commencing a host of parallel electrification schemes across the country without the project skills to deliver them effectively is the result of this failure.
Andrew mildly criticises going for shovel-ready schemes in haste, rather than strategic ones. Far more worrying is that these schemes were neither shovel-ready nor co-ordinated in a way to build up resources, teams and skills. The valid point is made that skills do not seem to have been a major consideration. This speaks volumes about NR being obsessed with process but not having a process that actually delivers to time or to budget, normally the two key objectives of any delivery process.
I agree with Andrew’s conclusion that Network Rail needs a long-term development plan. Development means having the ability to deliver what is required, rather than a list of projects, with the management resources and skill base to do it. This means a strong and developing core resource within NR, systematically learning lessons, achieving best practice and so rolling out repetitive projects such as electrification and systems capacity control schemes effectively.
