Book Description

The Department for Transport's decision to buy the new trains for Intercity Express and Thameslink itself has left the taxpayer bearing all the risk. The Department has no previous experience of running a procurement of this kind, let alone two with a combined value of £10.5 billion. The only way the Department can limit this risk is by requiring train operating companies to use these new trains to run their services regardless of whether they best fit the services they would like to offer. The Department could have addressed the lack of incentives that mean train operating companies do not have an interest in buying trains which minimise maintenance costs to Network Rail. Furthermore the Department's decision to take over the procurement has led to confusion over the respective roles and responsibilities of government and the industry which need to be clarified. The Intercity Express Programme was poorly managed from the outset. After Sir Andrew Foster completed a review into the value for money of Intercity Express in 2010, the original successful bidder Agility Trains came back with a revised bid that was 38% cheaper than its original one. The taxpayer could have been badly ripped off. The Department had begun the procurement without a clear idea of how many trains would be needed, which routes they would run on and what form of power would be required. In future the Department must be much more assertive in ensuring that the UK economy benefits from large public sector capital investment programmes