..... In any case the so-called 'brain drain' is something of a myth, most people take work abroad on a short-term basis, particularly when times are hard at home. Most of BR's staff still work on the railways, and would be doing so whoever ran them. ...
That may well be the case in your personal experience with your Company, but that is not the case elsewhere.
For example one of the first things that Network Rail did soon after formation was to re-organise in such a manner as to force many experienced IMU managers out of the Industry through what many believe were illegal practices and indeed a number of cases are currently going through the ET process on this basis. A great many expereinced staff left the Industry through this. A number of senior staff also left under Compromise Agreements.
There were very many re-organisations which were designed to remove long term BR/major Contractors TUPE staff either by voluntary redundancy or by rather more subtle but negative courses of action.
Cutbacks and deliberate delays in Projects and renewals, and forced renogotiation of existing Contracts have resulted in all the major Contractors downsizing their organisations through complulsory redundancy. Balfour Beatty Rail for example made a hoarde of staff redundant at Christmas 2009, and then Jarvis was destroyed through the medium of delaying payment for work undertaken.
With very few jobs here, staff have either left the Industry or have moved abroad, an awful lot having gone to Australia, where they were welcomed with open arms amnd disbelief that the UK Industry could be so shortsighted.
Network Rail have also long followed unspoken practice of not employing experienced former BR/IMU/IRU staff, preferring instead to recruit in from any Industry other than the Railways. They also embarked in 2002 on a process of taking anyone with any form of Degree and then sending them on a "conversion" course which seemingly prepared Sociology and Arts graduates to become skilled Railway engineers overnight. The route to the job was through a brainwashing centre where they were taught to treat the major Contractors akin to something unpleasant that they had trodden on, and to operate in a belligerent and aggreesive contractual manner. These people were then employed in preference to experienced staff. The latest variation on this has been to produce this graduate training programme which puts the Network Rail spin on everything, but as many have found to their cost does not guarantee a position at the end, and does not equip the holder with the ability to work abroad when they have no work.
Foreign administrations do not employ ex Network Rail people because they lack hands on experience, and more importantly Railways Overseas work in co-operation and partnership with, not against, their Contractors and co-operative behaviours are seen as vital unlike in the UK.
If you worked with the Projects division (whatever this month's title for them is) you would know that pretty much all of their people have no Railway experience whatsoever. It is this, together with the micro-management of the Contractors (in contravention of the CDM Regulations), very poorly written (almost illiterate at times) Tender and Contractual documentation, and the aggressive and beligerent manner of working with the major Contractors that has caused costs to soar. Principally through the creation of a massive and needless Projects division which is now so large it needs its own adminsitration as well as now producing its own variation of Network Rail Company Standards, which in most cases simply repeat what is in the main Standard, which in turn simply parrotts the Law.
It is no "myth" that Balfour Beatty Rail OHL staff are now working abroad in Australia and New Zealand (and will not be coming back), neither is it a "myth" that practically all of the Jarvis team which delivered the WCRM works are now working outside the UK, including the only team with experience in installing very high speed turnouts.
Again I am surprised that coming from a signalling company you hold such views especially when most signalling companies have struggled to keep their operations in the UK and many have been reliant upon Overseas work. It appears only to be the need to complete over-running and cocked up signalling Projects that has kept anything near a skilled core of key staff in the UK.
The Industry is about to suffer from the double-whammy of reduced numbers of staff at a time when there is going to be a rising demand, together with a much increased demad from Overseas where the Ts&Cs and working life is far better. Currently OHL and Track Design staff can basically name their price, and the demand for experienced construction staff continues to grow.
Had Network Rail not tried to break the major Infrastructure Contractors then they would have a skills base to fall back upon, especially in OHL, rather than now finding the need to employ poorly skilled Eastern Europeans who struggle with the language problem but who are starting to understand that it is now a case that they can basically ask for far more than they are worth - and NR will have no option but to pay it.
