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Rail Industry Recovery Group

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Andrew1395

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Regional travel authority documents and non national rail sales for journeys on national rail are reported in Lennon (the rail industry core management information engine). For example (and the most significant one), TfL Oyster/contactless data on journeys and revenue related to usage on national rail.

Of course Lennon reports journeys as a consequence of sales reported to it. Ticketless travel won’t be reported, but Rail Staff Travel income and staff priv ticket sales are recorded in Lennon.

I expect rail usage in London and Home Counties has not recovered anywhere near 50% of pre Covid levels. Of course the London travel region accounts for the largest proportion of all national rail journeys.

My small local station a mile from Watford Junction, had (as reported on Wikipedia) 600,000 more journeys annually than Birkenhead central. Wimbledon station recorded more passengers than Liverpool Lime Street.

So while we know there are large regional variations of rail usage in pre Covid times, I expect the current usage patterns could vary between regions. Particularly for work reasons, with stations previously seeing large numbers of office based commuter journeys. Or discretionary leisure journeys to city centres.
 
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andyj158

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and potentially the migration of some prior rail users to road.
You've hit the nail on the head. I've not used the railways for over 16 months now and have no immediate intentions on returning anytime soon. I drive those journeys I once would have taken the train and find it more convenient and relaxing overall.

In these days of smartphone parking payments, if I pay for 3 hours parking but decide I'm not ready to head home, I simply add more time. On the other hand if I've booked advanced train tickets I'm either on the return train I've booked or paying a fair bit extra for a new ticket on a later train. Yes I may get stuck in traffic, but it was equally likely I'd be stuck on a packed train if I choose to tavel when everyone else did, and Google maps does a pretty good job these days of avoiding the worst of the traffic where it can.

I've no doubts the railways are safe covid wise, and that's got no barring on my current choice. Yes the safety message will be important to encourage some back, but new ways of thinking (for the railways at least) will be required for others.
 

A0wen

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Hopefully alot of the appratchiks and do- gooders at the DfT will get the chop as well. That’s where I’d start with wielding the axe.

And you'd save less than 1% of the amount which needs to be saved.
 

CAF397

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Rail Industry Recovery Group (RIRG)
Enabling Framework Agreement Joint Statement
Rail workers have played an important and vital role in keeping Britain moving by ensuring
key workers, essential travel and freight services have been able to continue to operate
throughout the pandemic and their continued support and experience will help us to build a
safe, more reliable and efficient railway for the future.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government has been funding the significant
gap in rail finances created by the loss of passenger revenue. During this time, taxpayer
support for rail services has increased significantly while the industry's operating costs have
broadly stayed at pre-pandemic levels.
The Government’s position is that the current financial commitment is not unlimited or
sustainable. As a result, industry representatives have worked with the four recognised
Trades Unions to agree an Enabling Framework.
The Enabling Framework Agreement (EFA) sets out common principles and focus areas that
will shape our work to create a sustainable recovery for our industry. At its core is a
transition to a more secure, sustainable future for our industry and those who work within it.
You can read more about the EFA here
The next step is to establish industry-wide workstreams and sub-groups, including
representatives from across the industry, to take forward detailed proposals for local
discussion and implementation.
Further updates on progress will be communicated on a regular basis.


Document.
 

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mr_moo

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Hi all,

The "Rail Industry Recovery Group", part of the RDG (Rail Delivery Group), has today published a statement about the future industry plans.


Rail workers have played an important and vital role in keeping Britain moving by ensuring key workers, essential travel and freight services have been able to continue to operate throughout the pandemic and their continued support and experience will help us to build a safe, more reliable and efficient railway for the future.


Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government has been funding the significant gap in rail finances created by the loss of passenger revenue. During this time, taxpayer support for rail services has increased significantly while the industry's operating costs have broadly stayed at pre-pandemic levels.


The Government’s position is that the current financial commitment is not unlimited or sustainable. As a result, industry representatives have worked with the four recognised Trades Unions to agree an Enabling Framework.


The Enabling Framework Agreement (EFA) sets out common principles and focus areas that will shape our work to create a sustainable recovery for our industry. At its core is a transition to a more secure, sustainable future for our industry and those who work within it. You can read more about the EFA here


The next step is to establish industry-wide workstreams and sub-groups, including representatives from across the industry, to take forward detailed proposals for local discussion and implementation.


Further updates on progress will be communicated on a regular basis.

The full document it refers to: https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/media-centre-docman/12813-2021-06-efa-publication/file.html

Steve Montgomery, Chair of the Rail Delivery Group, has also publsihed his response to it: https://www.railpro.co.uk/news/rail-industry-comment-on-the-enabling-framework-agreement


Some fascinating stuff, especially a commitment to no compulsory redundancies before 31st December 2021.

Lots of interesting info to digest. Happy reading!
 
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Hi all,

The "Rail Industry Recovery Group", part of the RDG (Rail Delivery Group), has today published a statement about the future industry plans.




The full document it refers to: https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/media-centre-docman/12813-2021-06-efa-publication/file.html

Steve Montgomery, Chair of the Rail Delivery Group, has also publsihed his response to it: https://www.railpro.co.uk/news/rail-industry-comment-on-the-enabling-framework-agreement


Some fascinating stuff, especially a commitment to no compulsory redundancies before 31st December 2021.

Lots of interesting info to digest. Happy reading!
Just received in a work email, thought I’d jump on here to see if it had been posted yet, should have known! I do genuinely wonder what the railway will be like in 10 years time..
 

Tube driver

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Just read it. Ouch!

tough times ahead for both rail and tube. Will be very interesting over the next year or two how things pan out…

As the song goes, ”There may be trouble ahead…”
 

RPI

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This was always going to happen and all of these TOC'S who have a relaxed attitude to revenue protection have helped, has pointed out earlier in the thread, the passenger figures being used are from ticket sales, in my 20 years I've seen a massive increase in the number of staff who couldn't care about people travelling for free, not helped by TOC'S not pushing it and now its going to bite us all on the bum. I appreciate that passenger numbers have dropped dramatically since before covid but this ingrained attitude that has emerged over the past few years certainly won't help
 

choochoochoo

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This was always going to happen and all of these TOC'S who have a relaxed attitude to revenue protection have helped, has pointed out earlier in the thread, the passenger figures being used are from ticket sales, in my 20 years I've seen a massive increase in the number of staff who couldn't care about people travelling for free, not helped by TOC'S not pushing it and now its going to bite us all on the bum. I appreciate that passenger numbers have dropped dramatically since before covid but this ingrained attitude that has emerged over the past few years certainly won't help

Will this laissez-faire attitude to revenue protection get worse now there'll be management-contract-type concessions where ticket revenue goes direct to DfT (perhaps with a small percentage of what is collected going to the TOCs).

Will there'll be even less incentive for TOCs to bother collecting fares if they're only losing so little by not enforcing ?
 

RPI

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Will this laissez-faire attitude to revenue protection get worse now there'll be management-contract-type concessions where ticket revenue goes direct to DfT (perhaps with a small percentage of what is collected going to the TOCs).

Will there'll be even less incentive for TOCs to bother collecting fares if they're only losing so little by not enforcing ?
Its hard to say, the DfT may set ticketless travel targets/ticket checking targets, we really don't know. Now its the DfT revenue I expect them to take a greater interest
 

choochoochoo

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Its hard to say, the DfT may set ticketless travel targets/ticket checking targets, we really don't know. Now its the DfT revenue I expect them to take a greater interest
Isn't GTR DfT revenue ? There still seems to be a distinct lack of DfT interest in revenue protection given that there is so much ticketless travel
 

Andrew1395

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Reading that it sounds like the sort of thing BR would send out.
Passengers using technology, that sounds like a total refresh of ticketing fulfilment and reduction if face to face sales and advice.
New working practices sounds like old BRspeak for job reductions, like DOO, removing tiers of supervision and management.
Removing duplication could see reduced staffing at most locations and in support activities around commeracial (marketing, pricing, revenue analysis, accounting, etc).
sounds like reintroduction of national travel facilities. Hopefully unified pension. Maybe priv car parking and conveyance of staff coffins could be on the cards
 

43066

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Interesting document.

I’m very pleased to see the pay rises for those on less than £24k are being honoured.

The opening couple of lines re. rail
staff being key workers are a bit of a “thank you, but flame you” (or similar words), given what follows! “modernisation” is clearly “cost cutting” spelt differently. Some of the commentary on reform of working practices is deeply ironic when it is generally the unions who have been in favour of Sunday working, and TOCs who have resisted. And perhaps old fashioned working practices aren’t so inappropriate when many of us still drive to/operate (literally) Victorian signalling equipment!

Some rationalisation is inevitable given what’s going on at the moment. I suspect that could mean everything from no pay rises for a while, to redundancy, depending on role/location and how important you are to making train wheels turn. Speaking as a driver, I don’t feel worried about the continued existence of my job in the slightest. However I worry for my colleagues in other grades: I wouldn’t want to be working in a ticket office, especially in London, for example.

The scope of what actually happens will clearly depend on recovery of passenger numbers, (still an unknown), but also on the unionised nature of the industry and the the inevitable “optics” of rail strikes, and the government’s appetite for a fight.

As the pandemic fades, travel returns, and Joe Public moves on to the latest Daily Mail gossip story, I rather suspect our essentially populist government will wish to avoid prolonged high profile industrial disputes in an obscure yet important* and potentially highly disruptive area of the economy.

Time will tell!

*If anyone has any doubts as to the government’s view of the importance of the railway industry, contrast our industry’s treatment with that of the airline industry.
 

O L Leigh

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There was a fair bit of discussion about this at work today, during which the “R word” was bandied about a few times. However, I’m not going to be spooked into panicking about anything yet. It’s going to be a very long time before we get anything that looks like a set of recommendations out of this group, so everything so far is just statements of intent, supposition and best guess.

Part of the problem is that so many variables are still unknown, including if or when passenger numbers might return to something like their pre-Covid levels. All we know for certain is what is happening right now, but even that is somewhat artificial given that Government restrictions and advice aimed at curbing the spread of Covid remain in effect. Extrapolating this to give even some idea of what might happen 2, 6, 12 or even 48 months down the line is going to be beyond the ken even of Government.

All I can hope is that whatever comes of this doesn’t repeat the infamous SWT situation where they got rid of a lot of unnecessary staff only to discover that they were actually quite necessary after all. It shouldn’t rob the rail industry of its ability to respond to any springing back of demand.

With regard to redundancies, I’m not worrying about that yet. Until such time as the service patterns take shape it won’t be clear how many staff will be needed to provide it. Depot establishment calculations are dependent on the work, so it will take time for this to be made clear. I would expect that any staff reductions will be achieved by pausing recruitment and then relying on natural wastage.

That said, I do agree that there are some vulnerable looking grades who might be worrying about what might be coming down the line. I hope they’ll be able to be redeployed, but I suppose we’ll have to see about that. Speaking only for myself, while I do understand the reasons why some guards don’t want to be going through the train doing revenue, I do think they might just be cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
 

Watershed

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That said, I do agree that there are some vulnerable looking grades who might be worrying about what might be coming down the line. I hope they’ll be able to be redeployed, but I suppose we’ll have to see about that. Speaking only for myself, while I do understand the reasons why some guards don’t want to be going through the train doing revenue, I do think they might just be cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
The document speaks of a recruitment freeze in order to allow for transfers within the industry, for those whose role is made redundant (and who do not want to take voluntary redundancy).

In the circumstances, I think this is an exceptionally positive outcome. But that said:

*If anyone has any doubts as to the government’s view of the importance of the railway industry, contrast our industry’s treatment with that of the airline industry.
I am not so sure. I suspect it was more along the lines of the government initially thinking this was just going to be a short-term issue so they could paper over the cracks with a management fee model. Plus the fact that they would need to amend the Railways Act to remove the duty to intervene with an OLR if operators collapsed.

Of course, now they're stuck with the 'precedent' that they will subsidise the railways until Kingdom come. Just as a lot of TOCs are still hide-bound by 'precedent' they agreed very early in the pandemic, just to keep the wheels moving...
 

father_jack

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This was always going to happen and all of these TOC'S who have a relaxed attitude to revenue protection have helped, has pointed out earlier in the thread, the passenger figures being used are from ticket sales, in my 20 years I've seen a massive increase in the number of staff who couldn't care about people travelling for free, not helped by TOC'S not pushing it and now its going to bite us all on the bum. I appreciate that passenger numbers have dropped dramatically since before covid but this ingrained attitude that has emerged over the past few years certainly won't help
RPI you know well their managers have educated them in this way ! No delays as a guard and you'll be the apple of your manager's eye. And your elevation then to either driver or manager will happen. No guards manager teaches their staff a sense of proportion- pick the low hanging fruit first and then retreat if the heat goes on. That's because the choo choos have never been treated like a business from within.

I see booking offices, the farce that is catering (there was an advert last week for more pullman staff !!!!) and (in time) despatch, getting a tight haircut.

Two roles are left in the railway- drivers and revenue, gatelines will come under that.

Harsh but fair.
 

RPI

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RPI you know well their managers have educated them in this way ! No delays as a guard and you'll be the apple of your manager's eye. And your elevation then to either driver or manager will happen. No guards manager teaches their staff a sense of proportion- pick the low hanging fruit first and then retreat if the heat goes on. That's because the choo choos have never been treated like a business from within.

I see booking offices, the farce that is catering (there was an advert last week for more pullman staff !!!!) and (in time) despatch, getting a tight haircut.

Two roles are left in the railway- drivers and revenue, gatelines will come under that.

Harsh but fair.
Hmmm maybe, in my 20 years I've seen several reorganisations and Revenue always seems to get hit (never makes sense why as revenue protection generally brings the money in), sadly I can see this as an opportunity for mass DOO introduction with an OBS type role, but I'm now speculating.
 

tiptoptaff

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Hmmm maybe, in my 20 years I've seen several reorganisations and Revenue always seems to get hit (never makes sense why as revenue protection generally brings the money in), sadly I can see this as an opportunity for mass DOO introduction with an OBS type role, but I'm now speculating.
I highly doubt you'd be far wrong
 

yorksrob

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This was always going to happen and all of these TOC'S who have a relaxed attitude to revenue protection have helped, has pointed out earlier in the thread, the passenger figures being used are from ticket sales, in my 20 years I've seen a massive increase in the number of staff who couldn't care about people travelling for free, not helped by TOC'S not pushing it and now its going to bite us all on the bum. I appreciate that passenger numbers have dropped dramatically since before covid but this ingrained attitude that has emerged over the past few years certainly won't help

Will this laissez-faire attitude to revenue protection get worse now there'll be management-contract-type concessions where ticket revenue goes direct to DfT (perhaps with a small percentage of what is collected going to the TOCs).

Will there'll be even less incentive for TOCs to bother collecting fares if they're only losing so little by not enforcing ?

Not to mention the laissez-faire attitude to generating revenue in the first place.

Too many poor value fares and barriers to train travel for genuine paying passengers hampering the industry.
 

Fincra5

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Hmmm maybe, in my 20 years I've seen several reorganisations and Revenue always seems to get hit (never makes sense why as revenue protection generally brings the money in), sadly I can see this as an opportunity for mass DOO introduction with an OBS type role, but I'm now speculating.
The OBS role is interesting... You save some money on the training (etc) but they're on basically the same money as a guard, and on GTR there seem to be a higher number of OBS' & Guards than when it was simply Guards and Revenue Protection!

But yes, I can see it coming too, ever since it was agreed on one TOC its doing the rounds...
 

LNW-GW Joint

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This process covers DfT operations, but notably excludes devolved operations (Scotrail, TfW, Merseyrail, London Overground etc, and their owners).
They will surely need to establish similar processes, maybe tailored to local conditions.

As far as I can see the proposals are related solely to the revenue impact of the pandemic, and make no reference to the recent creation of Great British Railways and the major operational changes this will precipitate.
 

Horizon22

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In a role where there's a lot of NR and TOC staff working together and a NR manager just casually mentioned that he expects optional redundancy to become an option in the next few months for some.

I accept that obviously the funding model is unsustainable and if there's no practical way to replace millions of commuters who may simply never return at the rates they used to, there will be natural funding loss as a result. But the industry will have to pivot rapidly and adapt, and I find that unlikely to occur. That being said whilst TSSA and RMT may well have good intentions for their members what exactly are they going to be able to do to 'stop' no compulsory redundancies; the nuclear option is to strike, and if you're going to be made redundant anyway not sure what it solves...

That will be a profound realisation at some point and at an earlier stage the better rather that leading people into false hope. TfL have already run into this problem and bailouts will not continue forever - if revenue is forecast to be suppressed for the medium-term, costs will have to decrease to some extent.

Hmmm maybe, in my 20 years I've seen several reorganisations and Revenue always seems to get hit (never makes sense why as revenue protection generally brings the money in), sadly I can see this as an opportunity for mass DOO introduction with an OBS type role, but I'm now speculating.

I can imagine some extensions of DOO - some limits are for example highly arbitrary - why is it safe to run DOO to "X" and not "Y" for instance (recently GWR is okay to Didcot Parkway, but not Swindon on the special 387s), but let's not get into another DOO debate!
 

Stigy

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This was always going to happen and all of these TOC'S who have a relaxed attitude to revenue protection have helped, has pointed out earlier in the thread, the passenger figures being used are from ticket sales, in my 20 years I've seen a massive increase in the number of staff who couldn't care about people travelling for free, not helped by TOC'S not pushing it and now its going to bite us all on the bum. I appreciate that passenger numbers have dropped dramatically since before covid but this ingrained attitude that has emerged over the past few years certainly won't help
Agreed.

There are a lot of staff in grades who have an element of revenue protection in their job description, who have the attitude of “I get paid the same as someone who sells tickets/issues PFs etc anyway, why bother doing it myself”.

That’s the mentality of a lot of the staff these days unfortunately. I’d like to say that there are more staff with a decent work ethic than otherwise…
 

Horizon22

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All I can hope is that whatever comes of this doesn’t repeat the infamous SWT situation where they got rid of a lot of unnecessary staff only to discover that they were actually quite necessary after all. It shouldn’t rob the rail industry of its ability to respond to any springing back of demand.

With regard to redundancies, I’m not worrying about that yet. Until such time as the service patterns take shape it won’t be clear how many staff will be needed to provide it. Depot establishment calculations are dependent on the work, so it will take time for this to be made clear. I would expect that any staff reductions will be achieved by pausing recruitment and then relying on natural wastage.

This will be vital. Hopefully a medium/long-term view will be taken on any restructuring.
 

Starmill

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The OBS role is interesting... You save some money on the training (etc) but they're on basically the same money as a guard, and on GTR there seem to be a higher number of OBS' & Guards than when it was simply Guards and Revenue Protection!

But yes, I can see it coming too, ever since it was agreed on one TOC its doing the rounds...
The outcome of the GTR dispute did indeed appear to be more staff who are paid at a higher rate overall yes. In addition to the enormous financial cost of the strike period itself. There is no noticeable customer service benefit, but of course the dispute resulted in low morale. Not exactly what we might call a win.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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The Williams Shapps white paper expected the industry to realise c15% efficiency out of the implementation of that which is at least two if not three years down the line. In the short term what isn't clear is how much is expected of the industry to reduce the current £800m/month support that is quoted in the RIRG paper. Whats for sure is the Dept of T were given £2.1B additional funding this year for Covid support but the will be exhausted by the end of this month although with ridership improving the monthly cost must be reducing so maybe not till after summer.

In the short term reducing operational costs can only be managed through overtime by dialling back the train service although on the day when its most costly ie Sunday your balancing off the revenue you may derive from leisure traffic so can't see that being sensible option. So I imagine conversation with D of T has been around using this downturn in traffic to sort out T&Cs once and for all across the industry and harmonised across all operators funded by govt. This is spelt out in the detailed RIRG documents issued yesterday under section 4 . Revising Working Arrangements and Practices

Establishing a modern 7-day railway to support growth in leisure travel with robust working arrangements for Sundays; • Identify changes in maintenance and engineering teams to maximise work undertaken in infrastructure maintenance; • The advances in digital technology and changing passenger behaviour will accelerate the trend towards passenger service roles becoming more flexible and multi-functional both at stations and on-board to enhance the passenger experience and increased job satisfaction; • Optimise rolling stock capability utilising modern technology to enhance methods of train operation giving improved performance and reliability; • Review rostering arrangements to enable greater flexibility in allocating resources to increase effectiveness and efficiency levels; • Updating policies and procedural agreements to ensure these are fit for purpose and aligned with modern working principles.
Sorting out Sundays is long overdue and I suspect some of this inferred pressure on costs is to being used as a catalyst to get industry sorted out and the operators have been told part of them being kept on and earning a fee is to deal with this issue.

There are other comments about train service provision

Where duplication exists, train services may be removed or reduced e.g. services with similar
calling patterns on lines of route that currently exist
Which will clearly lead to removal of the likes of TPE North of Newcastle for example and im sure forum members can pick out numerous other routes/services. All of which reduces resource demands and some costs but expect a surplus of rolling stock to arise and hopefully a strategy about how best to deploy the modern stuff.

Then you have this comment

Future capacity enhancements to meet passenger growth will initially be provided by “strengthening” existing services before consideration of introducing increased service frequencies.
So maybe stock utilisation won't suffer as much but expect NR enhancement plan to end up in the bin which ought to free up capital to deploy to electrification potentially so maybe an upside.

All in all whilst this could be considered the industry watershed like it was the miners I would suggest things are a whole lot more positive and if the industry collectively responds the likely level of job reductions will be much reduced.
 

ComUtoR

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So I imagine conversation with D of T has been around using this downturn in traffic to sort out T&Cs once and for all across the industry and harmonised across all operators funded by govt.

I'm not sure that harmonisation across all TOCs is practical or even reasonable. There are far too many hurdles to overcome.


Sorting out Sundays is long overdue and I suspect some of this inferred pressure on costs is to being used as a catalyst to get industry sorted out and the operators have been told part of them being kept on and earning a fee is to deal with this issue.

Sunday provision for TOCs that don't already have Sundays as part of the working week comes with an increase in staffing levels. Bit of a catch 22 situation when the DfT and RIRG are asking for a reduction in costs. How any of this is expected to be agreed to before December is insane.
 

skyhigh

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Sorting out Sundays is long overdue and I suspect some of this inferred pressure on costs is to being used as a catalyst to get industry sorted out and the operators have been told part of them being kept on and earning a fee is to deal with this issue.
Where Sunday is currently outside of the working week for train crew, bringing it inside would result in increased staffing requirements. So if they're looking to reduce staffing numbers, I guess they could do so by bringing Sunday in but not increasing establishment numbers, meaning redundancy wouldn't be required.
Sunday provision for TOCs that don't already have Sundays as part of the working week comes with an increase in staffing levels. Bit of a catch 22 situation when the DfT and RIRG are asking for a reduction in costs. How any of this is expected to be agreed to before December is insane.
I agree. I've seen they want the details finalised by 31/10/21, with them taking effect from 31/12/21. That's an incredibly tight timescale given the size of this operation.
 

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I'm not sure that harmonisation across all TOCs is practical or even reasonable. There are far too many hurdles to overcome.
Why not? A set of national contracts with bands is generally how it works in the public sector.
 

Robertj21a

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Hmmm maybe, in my 20 years I've seen several reorganisations and Revenue always seems to get hit (never makes sense why as revenue protection generally brings the money in), sadly I can see this as an opportunity for mass DOO introduction with an OBS type role, but I'm now speculating.
Well at least Southern has already shown that the OBS role is worthwhile and effective. No need to reinvent the wheel.
 
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