Rail franchise debacle

[trousers]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19809717

The decision to award the UK's multi-billion-pound West Coast Main Line rail franchise to FirstGroup has been scrapped by the government.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said it was "deeply regrettable" that mistakes had been made by staff within the Department for Transport. Several staff have been suspended.

The estimated cost of reimbursing the companies for the cost of their bids will be £40m, he said.

Looks like a bit of a shambles to me.

Perhaps the government should privatise the bidding process...?

[CB Saint]

I really despair with public sector procurement - they must be some of the most inept, gormless fools on the planet.

[Saint_clark]

£40million down the pan. Brilliant.

[Dimond Geezer]

Unbelievable, glad to see the government has a firm grip on public funds, what 40million to us anyway.
T0ssers.

[CB Saint]

Any coincidence that Justine Greening has been shunted off to the International Development slot in the reshuffle where she can do less damage?

[ecuk268]

Will anyone actually be sacked?

If you worked for a private company and made this kind of cock-up, you'd be out on your ear but it never seems to happen to civil servants or local authority people, they just "learn lessons".

[mightysaints]

Public sector procurement screw up again, if i did this in with my company i would be down the road big time

[View From The Top]

Crickey, it only they had been as good as that beacon of private companies, G4S.

Regardless, it's a 'kin shambles.

[This Charming Man]

Will anyone actually be sacked?

If you worked for a private company and made this kind of cock-up, you'd be out on your ear but it never seems to happen to civil servants or local authority people, they just "learn lessons".

Four civil servants have been suspended. Which means they'll be placed on gardening leave for a year or so, then given a nice new job once this has all died down.

[pedg]

Any coincidence that Justine Greening has been shunted off to the International Development slot in the reshuffle where she can do less damage?

Strangely I believe EVERY government minister relating to the department of transport was moved in the reshuffle. Not that the goverment claimed to know about the problem then...

[Wade Garrett]

They didn't want a can of worms to be opened once it became clear that Branson was going to push it all the way.Murky politics in my opinion.

[Whitey Grandad]

It's all a complete Horlicks, I have never been in favour of rail privatisation, it's a silly idea. As my local MP once said: 'How can you have competition on the railways? One train can't overtake another'.

[trousers]

It's all a complete Horlicks, I have never been in favour of rail privatisation, it's a silly idea. As my local MP once said: 'How can you have competition on the railways? One train can't overtake another'.

The 'competitive' part of it isn't the running of the service, per se, but (supposedly) the regular tender process when it comes to retaining or gaining the licence.

So, a train company runs the service as if they were vying for punters so that their bid looks good the next time the licence is up for offer again.

As I say, that's the theory...as long as you've got competent procurement people it works fine...doh...

[solentstars]

It's all a complete Horlicks, I have never been in favour of rail privatisation, it's a silly idea. As my local MP once said: 'How can you have competition on the railways? One train can't overtake another'.

agree and the countrys not big enough for all these different company's and its about time we had a one national rail company.

[trousers]

agree and the countrys not big enough for all these different company's and its about time we had a one national rail company.

As long as you promise it'll be run better than last time it was state owned

[Clapham Saint]

The problem with the franchise system is that if you make the broad (very broad) assumption that better service = lower profit then the profit insentive for the operators is to do JUST enough to keep the franchise and no more.

for me competition will only work if I can go to a station and choose between two trains for the same journey on the same day and I can't see how that is going to be possible.