The Government has already ruled out any sort of public control in the wake of the West coast scandal, according to this:
"Despite ordering two ‘independent’ inquiries into last week’s West Coast Main Line fiasco, the Government has no intention of changing the franchising system, which has led to taxpayers having to pay more than £100million for the Department for Transport’s error.
According to senior sources at the Department, the Government’s commitment to the rail franchising system is ‘undiminished’."
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...iasco-halt-franchising-despite-100m-cost.html
But then there seems to be an automatic belief in Whitehall and with politicians the private sector is always better, despite huge amounts of public money being poured in - which in my view cancels out any sort of tight cost control or incentive to invest private money, instead just lobbying for more public cash.
If the private sector is so good, why doesn't the government trust them? Why do we need civil servants writing huge amounts of red tape to stop the naughty profiteers following contracts that perversely affect the passenger and the tax payer? This in turn adding so much cost it cancels out narrow efficiencies that could possibly arise.
I've nothing especially for or against the public or private sector, but I'm firmly of the belief that the private sector should either stand on its own two feet or simply be contractors, where the government gets private companies to put in the best value bid, such as a concession system. The private sector works best when it has has genuine freedom, risk and room to innovate.
Apart from Freight, Intercity and equipment supply, the railway cannot stand on its own two feet and has not reduced costs or especially invested, so what's the point? British rail was more efficient because the government put money on the table and said get on with it, and that was the end of that. Okay, it was a bit cheap and nasty in some areas, had problems getting staff, but in the end you get what you pay for. Freight is a great success story because the companies involved know that the buck stops with them, and they have made efficiencies.
McNulty concluded that franchising hadn't reduced costs because there were perverse incentives. It's not just the companies themselves, but the workforce knows it can name its price because there are no huge pools of labour ready to replace it.
The article in today's Telegraph by Andrew Gilligan sums it up quite well
"It was a sobering symptom of public credulousness, and the power of Branson’s superb personal PR. The West Coast line has indeed been “transformed” – but this “remarkable achievement” is almost entirely the work of the taxpayer, not Sir Richard. It was the Government, not Virgin, that paid £8.7 billion to upgrade the tracks and signalling, making possible today’s faster, more reliable and more frequent trains. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...591329/No-way-to-run-a-grown-up-railway.html#
