Revenue isn't irrelevant if you are collecting it on behalf of someone else.
The railway operates a clearing-house method of dealing with revenue, so it is less relevant than in other types of contracting. But it is irrelevant in terms of contracting when you don't take the revenue risk.
Indeed if your fee is fixed at 2% of collected revenue then you are still vulnerable to wild swings in revenue taking your fee below what it costs you in non-toc resources to operate
A fixed percentage fee keeps the revenue risk with the operator, which the article explicitly states will not happen because of what's happened with Covid.
A cost-plus contract doesn't give the contractor the same risk. Nothing is risk-free, but cost-plus is as close as you'll ever get to it.
It went from an expected £10m profit to a £88m loss
If you believe that you'll believe anything.
Why is £x fixed, particular over time as you can select a cheaper supplier if your current one can’t reduce costs?
Track access charges are fixed, train leasing costs are largely fixed, and unless you reduce headcount staff costs are largely fixed.
You might save a bit of money buying cheaper coffee for the mess room coffee machine I suppose?
You see the same in contact centre outsourcing, outsourcers drive down wages as the main expense they control, which, in turn, drives down the calibre of staff. And then the contractee wonders why customer service ratings have gone down the toilet (yes, John Lewis, I'm looking at you).
I'm yet to see evidence of outsourcing genuinely saving money. I did see plenty of the opposite with IT support contracting though!
BR was outsourcing various works related to electrification for example.
Contracting in specialist expertise makes lots of sense and is good business.
I'm not sure I'd be rushing to call Arriva or GoVia a source of specialist expertise though!
suspect most people don’t care who the ultimate owner is, just want the functioning bit to work on time and not rip them off.
I'd completely agree with that.
It's nothing dogmatic for me. I just have never been able to see what the TOCs *do* for their money. I have never seen what they bring to the table that state operators didn't/don't, other than the extra cost of a middle man's cut.