Repairing reputation and building confidence

Financial constraints on Network Rail mean that relying on Government will not achieve the growth that the railway wants to see, Network Rail Chief Executive Mark Carne told the press briefing on September 13.

Discussing the Hansford Review ( RAIL 833), Carne said that his company’s reputation had been sullied and needed repairing. Often, this can be achieved by quite small events, he said.

“It was extremely difficult to work with Network Rail,” he said, explaining that the reason for this was not incompetence, but rather that NR “has rather a lot of other things to do”.

He said the Review was part of a broader transformation of NR, saying it focused on “customers, cost, competition and commercial drive”.

Carne highlighted that NR delivers 22% of all UK infrastructure projects, has 15,000 live projects on its books, invests £130 million per week, and that 99% of all projects are handed back on time.

“But we have to do better,” he said. This includes creating a single NR point of contact, as well as a Service Level Agreement for third parties that sets out what they can expect from NR.

“We are not abdicating responsibilities. Third-party should have confidence. It’s not for us to define what is in the SLA, but for the market.”

He added that while NR was devolving, the company didn’t want contractors working in “wildly different ways”.

Regarding standards, Carne said: “They drive cost, I am constantly told. They drive capital costs. And drive them up. We need to ask: are our standards always fit for purpose? No. Do they use derogation? No.

“We need to be more industrybased. All our standards are open to scrutiny from the industry, and if a company comes up with a better solution we will pay a reward. The intent there is to attract a better way.”

He said NR was talking to other industries that have similar practices.