03 November 2000
During an intense grilling from MPs on November 1, Corbett insisted that privatisation was the major cause of current safety concerns, having created 'different safety cultures within different companies'.
In what was interpreted as a deliberate sideswipe at rail regulator Tom Winsor, with whom he has had a rocky relationship, Corbett said that there was a complex balancing act between speed, performance, number of trains and safety.
'When you jerk one bit of the system there is a huge effect on the others,' he said.
He told the Commons' transport sub-committee: 'The rush to meet performance [incentives] makes it harder to balance when you have external pressures on you.'
Corbett said it was too early to say whether this 'conflict' between performance and safety was the cause of the recent Hatfield disaster but his comments suggest that this will be at the centre of Railtrack's investigation.
He described the accident, which left four people dead, as 'totally unacceptable' and conceded that 'correct safety procedures' had not been followed.
According to Corbett, speed restrictions should have been placed on the Hatfield line in January this year after faults were detected. But by June the contractor, Balfour Beatty, was still carrying out ultrasound safety checks, only for the equipment to fail, again leaving the track without speed restrictions.
Corbett's account suggests that Railtrack is now looking at whether Balfour Beatty overlooked the faults in a bid to meet targets or whether personnel within the company, already in trouble over delays with the rail regulator, may have pressurised the contractor to push on regardless.
'We have to understand whether the issue between Railtrack and maintenance and the drive to meet performance incentives created a noise further down in Railtrack that we didn't intend,' Corbett told the MPs.
In a surprise move Corbett agreed that an independent rail safety authority, completely separate from Railtrack, should be established to investigate accidents.
He added that the challenge now was for the industry to become 'more joined-up'.
PFnov2000
