Scotrail - possible Abellio early termination vote & renationalisation

[Marty82]

MSPs are due to vote this week (Wednesday) on exercising the early break clause in Abellio's Scotrail franchise agreement. The break would be exercised in 2020 with the franchise ending earlier in 2022.

More discussion about renationalisation and a future public bid for the franchise.

Some links to coverage below:

https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2018/11/12-scotrail-franchise-faces-early-termination.html

THE Scottish Government could be poised to exercise a break clause in the ScotRail contract in 2020, ending the Abellio franchise in 2022, but this will depend on the result of a crucial vote in the Scottish Parliament this week.

Dissatisfaction with performance has fuelled criticism from politicians as well as passengers, and MSPs are set to vote in two days from now on a Labour motion to return ScotRail to public ownership.

Abellio, the overseas arm of Dutch Railways, has already been forced to prop up ScotRail with a cash injection of £10 million...

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/msps-to-vote-on-public-ownership-of-trains-1-4827926

Ferry operator David MacBrayne, which is wholly owned by Scottish ministers, has already expressed an interest in taking over the rail franchise.

Transport union TSSA also backs a public sector bid....

https://www.thenational.scot/news/1...il-network-as-they-vote-on-scotrail-contract/

Under the terms of the agreement with the train operator, ministers can exercise an opportunity in 2020 to end the franchise by its first expiry date two years later if the firm fails to meet its obligations. The franchise is currently run by Dutch state-owned Abellio, whose 10-year contract began in 2015.

Former transport minister Humza Yousaf pledged to work up a public sector bid two years ago after criticism of Abellio’s performance.

He argued that the operator had not been good enough as he urged unions and opposition parties to work with him to produce a public sector alternative....

 

[TRAX]

Meanwhile further down, GTR is still plodding along peacefully.

 

[Marty82]

Meanwhile further down, GTR is still plodding along peacefully.

I guess that's because GTR is a concession rather than a franchise.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Caledonian Sleeper next, perhaps?

 

[TRAX]

I guess that's because GTR is a concession rather than a franchise.

Excuse my ignorance, what are the differences here ?

 

[Mingulay]

Certainly Abellio have put themselves under threat to a degree by the electrification delay and HST delay. If the new timetable backfires or a new issue with the 385 , or Scotland’s best ever railway turns out to underwhelm in terms of reliability punctuality and overcrowding , it could be that public frustration gathers momentum which the government want to be on the right side of electorally.

However. Do they really want to be even more involved with the running of the railway than they are now where Abellio get the blame first when inevitably things go wrong. There is no evidence to suggest that there is a well of talent out with the current management team that would do materially better? Albeit the model of rail franchising in the Uk seems universally unpopular and so it may well be politically astute in the short term.

 

[Marty82]

Excuse my ignorance, what are the differences here ?

I believe GTR give all revenue to the UK government and get a payment in return.

 

[InOban]

By far the majority of the delays and cancellations are due to failures of the infrastructure, ie NR.

 

[Chrism20]

By far the majority of the delays and cancellations are due to failures of the infrastructure, ie NR.

Might just be me but I honestly think integrating the two of them (ScotRail and NR) more closely was a mistake.

We have lost Phil Verster who by all accounts was excellent on the NR side of things but seemed to get bogged down on the TOC side of things.

Now we have Alex Hynes who I personally think is a decent TOC chief - but that effectively is where his main skills are.

There has been too much going on in both ScotRail and NR over the last five years and integrating the two has IMO had the opposite effect to what was intended. It should never have been done until the electrification and new rolling stock was in place and things had started to settle down.

 

[tommy2215]

I don't think there's a majority in Holyrood for rail nationalisation. All the Tories and I think most SNP msps would vote against it.

 

[Starmill]

I guess that's because GTR is a concession rather than a franchise.

Excuse my ignorance, what are the differences here ?

By far the majority of the delays and cancellations are due to failures of the infrastructure, ie NR.

While it is true that GTR are on a gross cost contract rather than a net cost one, I don't see that this has anything to do with the possibility of early termination? In both cases this will be considered subject to contract terms, based on the specified performance indicators. It has been considered by the DfT in the past in the case of GTR and they chose not to pursue that route at that time.

 

[Mingulay]

I don't think there's a majority in Holyrood for rail nationalisation. All the Tories and I think most SNP msps would vote against it.

The Scottish Tories need to carve are more distinctive identity less associated with the established party image and quite rightly so. Franchise model is not well liked so you need to jettison privitisation models if they don’t work and don’t win votes. Sitting as I am on yet another late running train I don’t care if it’s Abellios fault or NR . I remain dissatisfied and so a new approach does appeal at least superficially.

 

[snookertam]

MSPs are due to vote this week (Wednesday) on exercising the early break clause in Abellio's Scotrail franchise agreement. The break would be exercised in 2020 with the franchise ending earlier in 2022.

More discussion about renationalisation and a future public bid for the franchise.

Some links to coverage below:

https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2018/11/12-scotrail-franchise-faces-early-termination.html

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/msps-to-vote-on-public-ownership-of-trains-1-4827926

https://www.thenational.scot/news/1...il-network-as-they-vote-on-scotrail-contract/

From https://www.thenational.scot/news/1...il-network-as-they-vote-on-scotrail-contract/

“ScotRail performance has remained consistently ahead of the GB average, but that GB average has got steadily worse since Network Rail moved timetable planning for Scotland to its Milton Keynes HQ in 2012. It is clear these essential railway functions must be devolved back to Scotland to allow any franchise operator to perform at its best.”

This strikes me as really quite disingenuous from the Scottish Government. The issue here is not the timetable, it is ScotRail's own performance and failure to meet its franchise commitments. There may be a separate debate to be had about where Scottish train planning should be done from, but there's no evidence to suggest that ScotRail's performance has been as a result of widespread schedule errors.

Given the stories we hear about some of the TOCs in England, I'm not sure 'has remained consistently ahead of the GB average' is much to crow about. We were supposed to be getting 'Dutch innovation' not staying just ahead of England whilst importing senior management from there.

 

[alangla]

You’re quoting The National there, which is basically a paid-for daily SNP election leaflet. This might be kite-flying or it might be a development of their rumblings about giving the franchise to CalMac. Given the mess that CalMac are currently in, to a large extent down to SNP initiatives like Road Equivalent pricing, which has hacked the legs from their revenue while dramatically increasing demand, I’m not convinced this is necessarily a good move. In their ideal world, Stagecoach would probably take it but they’ve not shown any real appetite for it recently.

 

[cactustwirly]

You’re quoting The National there, which is basically a paid-for daily SNP election leaflet. This might be kite-flying or it might be a development of their rumblings about giving the franchise to CalMac. Given the mess that CalMac are currently in, to a large extent down to SNP initiatives like Road Equivalent pricing, which has hacked the legs from their revenue while dramatically increasing demand, I’m not convinced this is necessarily a good move. In their ideal world, Stagecoach would probably take it but they’ve not shown any real appetite for it recently.

God No!
You do not want Stagecoach anywhere near ScotRail!
They'll just raise the fares, and cut away at everything else, like catering etc

 

[Class37.4]

And how would nationisation be any better?

Not going to fix delays caused by Network Fail or get their new and refurbished trains any quicker.

 

[Chrism20]

And how would nationisation be any better?

Not going to fix delays caused by Network Fail or get their new and refurbished trains any quicker.

It won't but it appears to be a vote winner at the moment so it will definitely be on the cards.

The notion amongst some of the general public is that fares will come down and somehow everything will start running on time 99.9999% of the time.

 

[deltic]

What the railway needs is stability- short term franchises, deep alliances, nationalisation with possibly annual budgeting again all lead to senior managers taking their eye of the ball of day to day delivery

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I thought Scotland had agreed with Westminster powers to allow public sector bids at the next franchise competition.
That's quite different from awarding a contract on a plate to David MacBrayne Ltd.
Are they even qualified to operate a TOC?
As it stands, I believe there has to be an open competition.

 

[GusB]

You’re quoting The National there, which is basically a paid-for daily SNP election leaflet. This might be kite-flying or it might be a development of their rumblings about giving the franchise to CalMac. Given the mess that CalMac are currently in, to a large extent down to SNP initiatives like Road Equivalent pricing, which has hacked the legs from their revenue while dramatically increasing demand, I’m not convinced this is necessarily a good move. In their ideal world, Stagecoach would probably take it but they’ve not shown any real appetite for it recently.

Have Stagecoach ever shown any interest in the Scotrail franchise? If they did bid and were successful, there would be a loud klaxon sounding in the headquarters of the Monopoly People (whatever name the organisation happens to have this week - CMA?), and they'd need to divest themselves of a huge chunk of their Scottish bus operations.

 

[Carlisle]

I don't think there's a majority in Holyrood for rail nationalisation. All the Tories and I think most SNP msps would vote against it.

Yes, and though I didn’t support it, Holyrood barely seemed capable of organiseing integration of the relatively small number of BTP staff into Police Scotland, so don’t fill me with confidence they’d do a brilliant job arranging full rail nationalisation either.

 

[Highlandspring]

The issue here is not the timetable, it is ScotRail's own performance and failure to meet its franchise commitments.

On the contrary, poor performance is the direct result of an insufficiently robust timetable.

 

[whhistle]

What the railway needs is stability- short term franchises

These are the complete opposite though.

 

[deltic]

These are the complete opposite though.

I know as the rest of the sentence you quoted tried and presumably failed to make clear

 

[yorkie]

For speculation regarding Virgin/Stagecoach, please use this thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...successors-to-the-scotrail-franchises.173523/

 

[David M]

Sorry but this is simply political posturing by Labour and bears little or no relation to reality.
The Scotrail franchise cannot be terminated early simply because a majority of MSPs vote that it should.
The break clause is there for both sides to assess the situation and if Abellio are unhappy, subject to their reasons meeting the contract requirements, they can terminate at that time. If Transport Scotland are unhappy then, subject to their reasons for early termination being valid, they can terminate similarly. At this time, I suspect Abellio would be quite happy to walk away at the end of the first franchise period.
HOWEVER, the Scottish Government have no powers to 'nationalise' Scotrail and the Labour Party are well aware of this - it was the very same Labour Party that prevented it!
If the franchise is terminated at the break clause time then it is tendered out exactly as before. The only difference the Scottish Government have been able to make is permitting public companies to submit a bid - this was, also, political posturing to appease the calls for nationalisation.
The award is based on a scoring system and could go to any bidder.
It's a quiet news week, indeed.
I have huge sympathy for Abellio - the 385 introduction has been painful (like the seats on them) but this can hardly be their fault. The HST introduction even more so but, surely, minimal blame lies at Abellio's door? Punctuality targets have not been met but, again, the majority of delays and cancellations are down to Network Rail. It suits Labour, politically, to posture about Scotrail this and Scotrail that - they have never come to terms with an award to a Netherlands bidder. For that, shame on them. Signalling failures seem a daily occurrence just now and it's Scotrail that are unfairly blamed for the resulting chaos.
What I'm genuinely curious about is what might or might not be different if a) a public sector bid was successful or even b) what do people think would be different under full nationalisation? I struggle to see what would change - I do, though, feel Abellio are trying harder than First did both in terms of cleanliness and standards and with regards to notifications of delays/cancellations and, certainly, delay repay.
Were Scotrail currently nationalised then I'm guessing that, at this time, Labour would be putting out press releases berating a Scottish Government for operating a loss making franchise and blowing taxpayers money.

 

[HH]

I believe GTR give all revenue to the UK government and get a payment in return.

Not this old urban myth.

GTR is still a Franchise. And it's not "all revenue".

The only Concessions are those granted by TfL.

 

[Clansman]

Nationalising ScotRail is pointless until Network Rail is devolved to Scotland, so that Transport Scotland can be fully accountable to the railways rather than having them (and even Abellio) serve as the public and political scape goats for issues that aren't largely caused by them.

On the whole, David M is absolutely spot on.

 

[gsnedders]

What powers do TS not already have over NR? They already have control over budget for CPs and goals for CPs, no?

 

[snookertam]

On the contrary, poor performance is the direct result of an insufficiently robust timetable.

Is this a general comment or does the timetable in Scotland generally not work?

I'd have thought if it was the timetable alone, then this would be directly responsible for disruption on a near daily basis, to the extent that there would be no option to revisit. So if you're saying the timetable is responsible, then how has it lasted?

I'd understand if you're saying that the intensity of the service makes it difficult to recover the timetable when it's disrupted for other reasons, but the root cause then is still the reason for the original disruption.