08 July 2005
The Department for Transport should look beyond the civil service to ensure value for money in the train industry following the abolition of the Strategic Rail Authority, MPs have said.
A report from the Public Accounts Committee said it was unlikely there would be improvements to the rail network if ministers treated the work of the SRA 'as a routine civil service task'.
Instead, claimed the PAC, the transport department 'should recruit enough staff with commercial and technical skills and with the stature necessary to deal effectively at the highest levels of the railway industry'.
Edward Leigh, chair of the PAC, said everything was now in place for the train network to be more effective. 'I want to see measurable value-for-money improvements as a result of the new arrangements,' he said.
'In particular, that means reducing the long-term cost of running the network – measured in terms of carrying more passengers at a lower network cost. That would be good for both taxpayers and passengers.'
The SRA will be abolished by the end of this year, with most of its powers being taken over by transport secretary Alistair Darling. It was responsible for providing strategic direction for Britain's railways, until the government outlined the decision to scrap it in a white paper in July 2004.
MPs also called for the new structure to set strategy 'more effectively than did the SRA', which it claimed was overreliant on Network Rail, the owner of the country's rail infrastructure since 2002, when it took over from Railtrack.
They also called on Network Rail to develop long-term financial indicators and called on ministers to establish 'effective oversight' of Network Rail's risks as ultimately they could fall on the department.
There was also a question mark over the continued use of private finance in the rail industry now that the government is more explicitly involved in the day-to-day running of the operation since the demise of Railtrack.
The PAC said the government had to 'justify explicitly' the extra cost of private finance in the sector rather than conventional public funding of Network Rail.
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