UK rail minister got engineer sacked for raising safety concerns

[sleepinglion]

The U.K. government’s new transport minister got an award-winning railway engineer sacked for speaking to the media about safety concerns at one of Britain’s busiest stations, POLITICO can reveal.

In his previous role running government-owned infrastructure manager Network Rail, Peter Hendy threatened to withhold public contracts from the man’s employer while urging disciplinary action — and asked officials to “deal with him.”

Hendy was angered after the engineer, Gareth Dennis, told a journalist that overcrowding at London’s Euston station was “unsafe” because it could result in a crush — despite concern also having been voiced by the official rail regulator.

Engineer in question, Gareth Dennis who runs the rail natter YouTube series, for making a comment to the independent about safety at Euston, seems a pretty uncontroversial comment as well for anyone who has ever been there.

UK rail minister got engineer sacked for raising safety concerns

Peter Hendy threatened to withhold public contracts while seeking disciplinary action.

www.politico.eu

 

[Harpo]

It’ll be interesting to see if this plays out through an Employment Tribunal. Hendy’s new position adds spice.

 

[LondonExile]

It’ll be interesting to see if this plays out through an Employment Tribunal. Hendy’s new position adds spice.

I doubt he has any case at an employment tribunal, unless his employer screwed up procedurally.

He was dismissed for annoying a large client who was threatening to withhold future contracts unless they dismissed him.

I'm fairly sure that will fall under a fair dismissal for "Some other substantial reason". This employment lawyers website even gives 3rd party pressure as a classic example of where a dismissal will be "fair" (for the legal definition, not the common definition!)

SOSR Dismissal: What Is Some Other Substantial Reason? | DavidsonMorris

To dismiss an employee lawfully, employers have to be able to provide a fair reason. There are five potentially fair reasons for dismissal set out under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. These relate to employee conduct, capability and performance, redundancy, breach of a statutory...

www.davidsonmorris.com

 

[signed]

I don't know how that works in the UK, but wouldn't that fall right into retaliation against a whistleblower? It does seem like it could stand in a whistleblower protection case

 

[DanNCL]

It makes you wonder what else may have been covered up during his time as Network Rail chair. Especially considering that there was a fatal accident on the UK rail network during that time, which Network Rail faced criminal charges for.

 

[Goldfish62]

I don't know how that works in the UK, but wouldn't that fall right into retaliation against a whistleblower? It does seem like it could stand in a whistleblower protection case

Whistleblowing is not slagging off your enployer's client in public about an issue that was already in the public domain and being addressed through an enforcement notice issued by the ORR.

Seems a clear issue of gross misconduct. He's lucky he got the offer of a pay-off. Plenty of people wouldn't.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't know how that works in the UK, but wouldn't that fall right into retaliation against a whistleblower? It does seem like it could stand in a whistleblower protection case

I suspect it's something that would be stuck in the supplier-customer relationship. NR (the supplier's only customer) says they will not contract that individual, they're therefore effectively redundant.

This is pretty disgraceful, though, given that Euston (a) demonstrably is unsafe, and (b) hasn't been fixed, indeed in some ways has been made worse. And I don't even like Dennis! I could understand if he was a LNER employee slagging off the fare increase trial, for instance, but nobody should ever be disciplined for highlighting safety issues, and safety issues certainly still exist at Euston.

Could this be Hendy's undoing? To be honest I think if he has had someone sacked to cover up a safety issue then he has no credibility in the industry at all in my view and should himself be sacked.

 

[AngusH]

I truly cannot see what possible reason any of this could have happened.

The original comments by Gareth Dennis seem the kind of thing that any knowledgable passenger or enthusiast might say,
and he wasn't identified in the article as a Network Rail employee or as a whistle blower in the article.

If this hadn't happened I wouldn't know that he had any connection to NR, inside knowledge or position at all.

Forcing his employer to sack him seems to have brought far more attention to the
issue than simply disagreeing with the article in a public reply.

Absolute own goal for NR here. Complete stupidity.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Whistleblowing is not slagging off your enployer's client in public about an issue that was already in the public domain and being addressed through an enforcement notice issued by the ORR.

Wasn't addressed. Was made worse.

 

[Goldfish62]

Wasn't addressed. Was made worse.

Can you explain?

 

[Harpo]

It makes you wonder what else may have been covered up

I don’t see any ‘cover-up’ here but I am a bit surprised that it was documented.

All my experience of grown-ups wanting something/somebody ‘dealt with’ was that it was kept off record, done verbally, and usually included a veiled threat to those being tasked to address it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Can you explain?

Have you been to Euston recently? The "scrum" is as bad as it ever was, it's that he highlighted as a safety issue and it is, a massive one. The new departure boards have made it loads worse.

 

[Goldfish62]

I don’t see any ‘cover-up’ here but I am a bit surprised that it was documented.

All my experience of grown-ups wanting something/somebody ‘dealt with’ was that it was kept off record, done verbally, and usually included a veiled threat to those being tasked to address it.

But consider the seriousness of the issue here.

Without his enployer's knowledge a employee who would have had significant input into work for a client went to the national media to criticise that client on an issue that was already in the public domain. No one would get away with that.

Have you been to Euston recently? The "scrum" is as bad as it ever was, it's that he highlighted as a safety issue and it is, a massive one. The new departure boards have made it loads worse.

I was there catching a train on Friday.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I was there catching a train on Friday.

Then you'll have seen that the problem has not been fixed. If anything it's worse. NR have just done their usual "bring in shouty men, that'll fix things" nonsense.

 

[DanNCL]

Could this be Hendy's undoing? To be honest I think if he has had someone sacked to cover up a safety issue then he has no credibility in the industry at all in my view and should himself be sacked.

It ought to be.

I don’t see any ‘cover-up’ here but I am a bit surprised that it was documented.

All my experience of grown-ups wanting something/somebody ‘dealt with’ was that it was kept off record, done verbally, and usually included a veiled threat to those being tasked to address it.

The cover up is the quick movement to get Dennis ‘dealt with’ for raising these concerns. If they’re not even going to tolerate whistle blowing on something that anyone with half a brain can work out, why should we expect them to tolerate it when it’s something you’d need inside knowledge to know about?

Network Rail were prosecuted during Hendy’s time as chair. It raises questions.

But consider the seriousness of the issue here.

Without his enployer's knowledge a employee who would have had significant input into work for a client went to the national media to criticise that client on an issue that was already in the public domain. No one would get away with that.


I was there catching a train on Friday.

We have free speech in this country. None of his employer’s business what he says in a personal capacity, nor Network Rail’s business for that matter. 99.9% of those who saw what he said wouldn’t have known about his then position at SYSTRA. And when one considers Dennis’s role with stuff such as the Campaign for level boarding, something which the railway seems very resistant to, it’s no wonder that any excuse was found to get rid of him.

 

[WelshBluebird]

It is worth saying that Gareth obviously talks a lot in the press and online about the railways in general, and probably has said enough to annoy different people in his time. I think here the issue isn't really what he has said and more the essentially blackmailing of a company by public servant - telling a company they will be punished by being looked over for contracts. That seems legally and morally questionable at the very least to me!

 

[MatthewHutton]

No fan of Dennis but he has definitely been mistreated. The industry needs more outside voices not less.

And the accessibility stuff is very poor.

 

[Bluejays]

Poor response by Hendy. Hopefully Starmer has a serious word/gets rid of him. Horrible, obnoxious behaviour although unfortunately not surprising.

 

[trebor79]

I can see it both ways. If an employee of a contractor went to the press to say we ran an unsafe organisation I'd be gunning for him too.
Had he voiced his concerns through the proper channels?
Just spouting off to the press is NOT "whistleblowing".
It's not exactly whistleblowing either if the mater is already subject to ORR processes.

I'm not a fan of Dennis, he comes across as very opinionated and rather arrogant and won't listen to other points of view. Unfortunately such people do sometimes cross the line, perhaps unintentionally.

I think the offer of a pay off was generous and I can't understand why he didn't take it as he must have known the alternative was to be fired.

All that said, Euston is horrible. Last time I caught a train there I used RTT to find the platform 4 minutes before departure. I wandered down the ramp past a gaggle of staff and thought I'd got away with it before I heard shouting. I just get wandering heard a "For ****s sake" and a guy jogged up to me saying the train wasn't ready and I had to go back to the concourse. Fortunately for me at that exact moment the screen changed to show the departure so I just pointed at it and said it's been announced.

The staff I have to say seemed utterly confused and as frustrated as the passengers.
It's obviously a badly run station and the new departure boards are ridiculous. But unsafe? Nah.

 

[jojoseph72]

It does seem like it could stand in a whistleblower protection case

From my understanding, what Gareth Dennis was saying was already publicly known (IIRC report by the ORR has also raised such issues with Euston Station), so what he was saying was nothing new. Which I guess makes it even weirder: what Gareth was saying was something which had a general consensus around and a report which highlighted such issues.

An article by the Independent posted in April 2024 (link below) states "Last autumn, the Office of Rail and Road said that crowds had reached “unacceptable levels” at Euston, and issued Network Rail with an improvement notice"

‘Uncomfortable, unpleasant, unsafe’: How London’s Euston Station became hell on earth

Dubbed in one memorable tweet as ‘a Petri dish of chaos’, London’s Euston station has become a living metaphor for Britain’s crumbling infrastructure – a dire hub of delays, expense and trauma. Katie Rosseinsky dives into its aspirational past and potentially brighter future, and asks where it...

www.independent.co.uk

I think this is the report that the Independent was referring to.

Rail regulator requires crowd management improvements at Euston Station | Office of Rail and Road

Network Rail has been issued with an improvement notice by the Office of Rail and Road for London’s Euston Station, where the company has failed to put in effective measures to prevent risks to passengers and others during instances of surges and overcrowding.

www.orr.gov.uk

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's obviously a badly run station and the new departure boards are ridiculous. But unsafe? Nah.

If you've seen the way the crowds move it definitely is unsafe - the trample risk is huge. You've probably not seen it if you use Realtime Trains to get ahead of it.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I think the offer of a pay off was generous and I can't understand why he didn't take it as he must have known the alternative was to be fired.

1 - Why offer him a payout in the first place if he is as in the wrong as you think?

2 - Because the payout came with an NDA so he wouldn't have been able to talk about it.

But unsafe? Nah.

Forcing people to wait around in large crowds in a poorly laid out and designed space (that at some periods of time can get pretty overcrorwded), then making them essentially run for the platform when it gets announced is unsafe. And I'd throw the same accusation to other London stations that do the same (like Paddington) too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm not a fan of Dennis, he comes across as very opinionated and rather arrogant and won't listen to other points of view. Unfortunately such people do sometimes cross the line, perhaps unintentionally.

Possibly so, and indeed I've blocked him on Twitter because I was sick of his arrogance (he comes across as some sort of railway oracle, when in fact his area of expertise is just engineering).

However he's bang-on with Euston, it's dangerous and it has not been fixed.

 

[dmncf]

To the average person, rail engineering can be a fairly dull subject. From what I’ve seen, Gareth Dennis has helped raise the profile of rail engineering and make it more accessible. That’s to the benefit of employers including Network Rail and Systra.

It’s sad that Systra has been strong-armed by Lord Hendy into taking a two-faced approach to Gareth Dennis. Normally a consultancy such as Systra is keen on employees that make a name for themselves in media such as LinkedIn – such employees are normally considered an asset. This press release demonstrates this: https://www.systra.com/uk/news/gare...rofessional-distinguished-service-award-2024/

I’m really disappointed to see this extreme pettiness from Lord Hendy over remarks by Gareth Dennis that are pretty uncontroversial.

 

[Moonshot]

If you've seen the way the crowds move it definitely is unsafe - the trample risk is huge. You've probably not seen it if you use Realtime Trains to get ahead of it.

It's a poor station no doubt

 

[WelshBluebird]

It is worth actually quoting what Dennis said to so offend Hendy:

And when multiple trains are delayed or cancelled, “you’re talking about thousands of people squished into that space. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s not just unpleasant, it’s unsafe.”

Given he was talking about times of disruption specifically, does anyone actually really disagree with that? Does anyone here really think those words are worth of getting the sack?

 

[mpthomson]

It ought to be.


The cover up is the quick movement to get Dennis ‘dealt with’ for raising these concerns. If they’re not even going to tolerate whistle blowing on something that anyone with half a brain can work out, why should we expect them to tolerate it when it’s something you’d need inside knowledge to know about?

Network Rail were prosecuted during Hendy’s time as chair. It raises questions.


We have free speech in this country. None of his employer’s business what he says in a personal capacity, nor Network Rail’s business for that matter. 99.9% of those who saw what he said wouldn’t have known about his then position at SYSTRA. And when one considers Dennis’s role with stuff such as the Campaign for level boarding, something which the railway seems very resistant to, it’s no wonder that any excuse was found to get rid of him.

It's almost certainly in his contract that he must not speak to the media in that manner.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

This is spectacularly dumb of Hendy on two fronts.

First, every company in the railway industry ultimately interacts with Network Rail in one way or another. TOCs run their services on NR's lines and through NR-owned stations. ROSCOs' assets run on NR metals. Siemens and Hitachi and Alstom and everyone else produce stock to run on the NR network.

By issuing an ultimatum to one company, Hendy is sending a chilling effect through the industry: "your employees must never criticise any aspect of railway operation with which we're involved". (Which is pretty much everything.) Trying to stop an entire industry speaking out on safety matters is a really bad look.

Second, Gareth Dennis is well known as a media commentator. He obviously has contacts in the media. Hendy, in May, was presumably either negotiating - or had already agreed - his appointment with the incoming Government. Did he not stop for 15 seconds to think that getting someone with good media connections fired might possibly lead to the teensiest little bit of trouble in his new job?

 

[AlterEgo]

Given he was talking about times of disruption specifically, does anyone actually really disagree with that? Does anyone here really think those words are worth of getting the sack?

Quite. He is right there.

 

[telstarbox]

I suspect it's something that would be stuck in the supplier-customer relationship. NR (the supplier's only customer) says they will not contract that individual, they're therefore effectively redundant.

Systra have other customers in the UK, not just NR (although they will be a substantial one).