Outgoing Network Rail boss made CBE

[DarloRich]

The outgoing NR chief has been awarded a CBE in the Queens Birthday honours list. I expect lots of ill informed criticsm from experts, politicians and posters here for this decision.

Birthday Honours 2018: Network Rail boss made CBE amid travel chaos

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44415339

 

[nw-sparks]

I'm surprised he managed to run Network Rail in between his duties as Governor of the Bank Of England.

 

[DarloRich]

I'm surprised he managed to run Network Rail in between his duties as Governor of the Bank Of England.

never seen in the same room together...................

 

[DarloRich]

An interesting discussion on this point on Five live a few minutes ago with some good points made by Nigel Harris of Rail.

 

[3141]

I'm critical of Network Rail's performance over electrification, but there are also many projects which have gone right, and the Chief Executive is certainly not responsible for the current problems on Thameslink and at Northern. At least two of his predecessors have received knighthoods, so perhaps getting a CBE already contains a suggestion of "could have done better".

Part of today's culture is a desire to blame somebody for everything and expect people at the top to resign as soon as anything goes wrong. If they did that, the frequent discontinuity would be another cause of problems.

 

[johnnychips]

Also worth noting that the decision to give him the CBE will have been made a few months ago: he would have been sent a letter saying that HM is mindful of offering the honour; would he be prepared to accept it? A list like this is planned well in advance, unlike a resigning prime minister's.

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

Must've made a real contribution to the industry and such to be receiving a CBE. I believe the only better titles you can get are KBE and GBE (the latter seems to have mostly gone to military men from what I've read and is very rarely given to someone under 60). Funny thing is though, I've no idea who the boss of Network Rail is at the minute, let alone what he's done, so perhaps some enlightenment is in order?

 

[MML]

I don't think he should get it.
Not because of the current timetable issues, as a significant amount of those issues are to do with lack of drivers and route knowledge. I don't even blame him for the late running electrification as most of that work has been subcontracted anyway.

But there is fundamentally something wrong with paying him a huge salary for this managerial position and then giving him further reward for doing what he has been handsomely paid to do.
What's the gong for ? Services to his own back pocket ?
Now if he had been doing it voluntarily for the good of the country and not himself then perhaps I would be less opposed.
A platform assistant who has served customers well for their entire career is just as deserving if not more.
I'd be very tempted to use the sword and say off with his head. It's the only way to discourage these mercenary fat cats.

 

[Carntyne]

Well deserved. Along with Ian Prosser's from the ORR.

 

[Polarbear]

I saw Nigel Harris being interviewed on BBC news & thought he set things out very well. The CBE has been awarded due to the work done by NR in the past. It's reasonable to say that the decision to make such an award would have been taken some time back, way before the current problems with various TOC's timetables.

Yes, the timing is unfortunate & whilst I don't personally agree with giving honours to those who are well rewarded anyway for the work that they do, (a debate for another thread), that's not a reason to withhold the CBE.

 

[B&I]

I don't think he should get it.
Not because of the current timetable issues, as a significant amount of those issues are to do with lack of drivers and route knowledge. I don't even blame him for the late running electrification as most of that work has been subcontracted anyway.

But there is fundamentally something wrong with paying him a huge salary for this managerial position and then giving him further reward for doing what he has been handsomely paid to do.
What's the gong for ? Services to his own back pocket ?
Now if he had been doing it voluntarily for the good of the country and not himself then perhaps I would be less opposed.
A platform assistant who has served customers well for their entire career is just as deserving if not more.
I'd be very tempted to use the sword and say off with his head. It's the only way to discourage these mercenary fat cats.

Yes, as usual there'll be a lot of squabbling about this particular appointment, and no consideration of how well.the honours system works in general.

 

[Bertie the bus]

At least two of his predecessors have received knighthoods, so perhaps getting a CBE already contains a suggestion of "could have done better".

So he's done a pretty mediocre job then. Not worthy of a knighthood but still give him something.

I don't think the majority of people think that is what the honours system is for.

 

[30909]

I don't think the "majority" of people, in the UK, think about the honours system (>30+m) they are only interested when 1. It's awarded to a "personality" 2. the Media get on the awardees case, or 3. a "popular" personality appears to be overlooked. Those who receive them for charitable, public or commercial achievement rarely receive national media recognition, with luck the local media may draw attention to the award

 

[Abpj17]

I don't think he should get it.
Not because of the current timetable issues, as a significant amount of those issues are to do with lack of drivers and route knowledge. I don't even blame him for the late running electrification as most of that work has been subcontracted anyway.

But there is fundamentally something wrong with paying him a huge salary for this managerial position and then giving him further reward for doing what he has been handsomely paid to do.
What's the gong for ? Services to his own back pocket ?
Now if he had been doing it voluntarily for the good of the country and not himself then perhaps I would be less opposed.
A platform assistant who has served customers well for their entire career is just as deserving if not more.
I'd be very tempted to use the sword and say off with his head. It's the only way to discourage these mercenary fat cats.

Rightly or wrongly, it's the norm for honours to be given to those holding CEO-type roles across the public and large corporate end of the private sector.

A lot of honours are also given out to the wider population. They operate via nomination. Have you ever nominated a platform assistant?

You can find the link to do so here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nominate-someone-for-a-uk-national-honour

 

[Bertie the bus]

I don't think the "majority" of people, in the UK, think about the honours system (>30+m) they are only interested when 1. It's awarded to a "personality" 2. the Media get on the awardees case, or 3. a "popular" personality appears to be overlooked. Those who receive them for charitable, public or commercial achievement rarely receive national media recognition, with luck the local media may draw attention to the award

It's not high on the list of people's concerns so that means giving honours to people who have been paid handsomly to do a sort of OK job is right? If he had been heavily involved in charity work then he wouldn't have received it for services to the rail industry.

 

[farleigh]

These honours are not relevant to most peoples lives. Personally, I couldn't care less who gets one.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Id probably support it more as a CBE for services to rail industry if he hadn't only spent 4 years of his entire career in it, with most of it in gas and oil.

 

[Railman]

Its a disgrace he is extremely well paid for what he did, and he has only done a few years anyway. To his credit he was good at "connning" the goverment to keep sending more money to NR that has to be said. But that only maintained the waste and inefficiency. He also reduced the amount of work it said it could do (saves on more failed projects, and embarassing interviews). He personally launched the "Safe Work Leader" project that cost £tens of Millions and produced absolutely ZERO. Not that many people will ever hear of it outside NR. Also be very sceptical of anything Nigel Harris says he is so pro privatisation its untrue, anyone would think his magazine is more interested in publicity and productions for award ceremonies than real journalism. He also like NR because he gets lots of press releases and interviews from their "spin department" fills magazine pages and dosent cost much. I think the ASLEF rep at Northern deserves one.

 

[Marklund]

Its a disgrace he is extremely well paid for what he did, and he has only done a few years anyway. To his credit he was good at "connning" the goverment to keep sending more money to NR that has to be said. But that only maintained the waste and inefficiency. He also reduced the amount of work it said it could do (saves on more failed projects, and embarassing interviews). He personally launched the "Safe Work Leader" project that cost £tens of Millions and produced absolutely ZERO. Not that many people will ever hear of it outside NR.

This, and absolutely this.
Absolute disgrace of a project that wasted so much time, and scarce resources.

He's been there for no length of time, and his reward was his copious pay cheque.
His bauble from the government is a slap in the face to staff who have been there for 40 years, providing a service day in day out.