Hmmm, the thing is, either way it should be reported. Covering up for a "mate" in the first instance may feel right, but may not actually be doing either the person or the railway a favour at all. For all you know, that person may have something going on in their life which is effecting their concentration and that's the third time this shift they've done that; by reporting it they are relieved and hopefully get the break/support they need. And of course assuming the "mate" is in their TU, then their local rep should ensure they get dealt fairly with. It's also possible that they are a really nice decent person but they are just not cut out for the role and keep making mistakes, or their training was deficient. It's only when you see an accurate record you can identify this.
I've seen situations where a person who made a significant (safety critical) mistake appeared to have a clean record (i.e. what was reported) but anecdotally had "a record as long as your arm" so there was discomfort with their colleagues when the situation was treated as a first mistake (which from the point of view of the management/investigators, it was).
I am not wholly convinced. I remember the 2b/c reorganisation. The reality is that a whole lot of infrastructure maintenance tasks don't lend themself to "efficient production" methods. NR has experimented with "lean" for years but the problem is that "lean" doesn't really work when you don't have control of your system boundaries, and NR will never have control of their system boundaries as they are broken by stuff like weather events, public behaviour etc- which cannot be controlled by NR. Also difficult to have a robust system which is also "lean" as the 2 things tend to work against each other (contingency resource is inefficient, and it's difficult to achieve a sufficiently reliable asset not to need contingency resource when the asset is a heritage as NR's infrastructure, even where the track and signalling is new most of the earthworks, structures and drainage are not, nor are all structures controlled by NR- e.g. road bridges over the railway).
What NR senior management is not mentioning is that there is an inherent inefficiency in the way maintenance is done due to the fact that safe access in many locations is difficult/impossible with trains running. An investment in safe cess paths and signal-operated warning systems over the past 10-15 years would have made it possible to make maintenance much more efficient, as it would have enabled immediate safe access at all hours for a large proportion of the asset- but a lack of "not invented here" and short-term outlook at senior level prevented that (and I remember; a decade ago I worked with an IMDU to try push for some of these things in an area being resignaled but the senior and strategic bods blocked them and said no. Would have been a game-changer for the IMDU and over 10 years was highly affordable and also highly doable technically- but we just couldn't make it happen).
It's never efficient to be fixing a fault on a set of points if you need to wait 45 minutes to get a 10-minute line blockage to do the initial inspection to find out what is wrong. Then wait another 45 minutes or more to get the longer 30 minutes of access you need to fix the asset. You could be on site for 3 or 4 hours to do a job which takes less than an hour overall due to waiting for line blockages (not the Signallers' fault, they can only work within the permitted rules for their location and/or what Control allows). The team sent to that fault may be a "faulting and maintenance" team which is pulled off preventative maintenance to go to that fault so half a days preventative maintenance is lost too. [An alternative is to wait until the end of service with delays building, building and a LOT of unhappy passengers/FOCs- probably what will happen if NR get their way about cutting maintenance and response staff.]
A lot of railway maintenance is done at night- between 00:30 and 04:30 in some places, although a late-running passenger train with one/no persons on could delay that by half an hour or more. The roads (m-ways) close between 20:00 and 06:00 but the railways only get 00:30 to 04:30.............. 10 hrs vs 4 hours. Plus, the m-way closures go on at 20:00 ON THE DOT no matter what, none of this waiting for a late train to go through!
The beancounters tend to look at the shiny technological toys and forget about real life. The shineys can do a certain amount, but may miss other things.... so where a Patroller was not just checking the track but also the fence-line, when you send the inspection train out instead of a Patroller to check the track, you then still need to send someone to check the fence-line. Maybe not as often, but still not much of a saving in the big scheme of things especially if a couple of curious cows find the fence gap before the less-frequent inspection does [cow within boundary fence = caution trains].
As for multiskilling: well there's been joint points teams for years. But again the reality is that it's not so simple to have one team that does everything due to the diversity of work on the infrastructure; e.g. it's unlikely that the team fault-finding a track-circuit failure will have much in common skills (and inherent capability) with the team dealing with a wet-bed.
The easy way to cut costs in NR is to point to "The Technology" and then slash maintenance. It's been going on for years. It tends to not end well.
The idea that NR maintenance is full of throw-backs who are dead against technology is also untrue. The front-line maintenance teams have been accepting new technology and work methods for years- albeit with skepticism at times because they remember the last time the same idea was tried in the same way and failed when it came up against real life.
A look at the infrastructure tells you Maintenance is stretched. Off-track has been the least well looked after section for over a decade now, as it's not as "important" as other more "safety critical" things; plus they are prioritised to level crossing sighting. So we get a railway where signal aspects are becoming obscured by trees and vegetation brushing against the side of trains. We also get a railway where drains may not be cleared before the winter storms- increasing the likelihood of floods or landslips.
So, I can see why the maintenance and signalling parts of NR are taking the view they do; they are the people on the sharp end at all times of day and night, seeing the actual reality rather than the slide-deck viewed on a sunny day in a comfortable office with coffee and biscuits on the table.
Whilst the senior people I am sure do not intend to compromise safety, I'm not convinced they have the depth of understanding of the real world and the fundamentals of what keeps the railway safe to be making the decisions they are. I therefore have a great deal of sympathy for the RMT-NR action, and pray that people on the front line are listened to; otherwise we'll be back on the road to Hatfield.
Indeed, and TSSA have issued guidance to members about what they should and should not do to avoid putting themself in a position where they might get into trouble with their employer. (I am sure ASLEF will have done the same).
And you've hit the mail on the head as to why this is going to be a difficult one; HMT now regards the railway as being part of the public sector hence subject to the "usual" public sector (non LA) pay controls. They care not a jot about real life or fairness, just about maintaining their policy and boundaries on pay. Plus HMT may believe that being hard with the rail sector even in the face of strikes (which the public has not a great deal of sympathy for) will also discourage other more "cuddly" parts of the public sector such as nurses getting a bigger pay-rise (which the public would support) which would be much more expensive. It's when the public get annoyed and Ministers worry about their seats that HMT officials are reigned in.
Only time will tell how this plays out.
TPO
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