Serious flaws identified in West Coast Main Line bid, MPs told
AN investigation into the tendering process for the West Coast Main Line has identified a number of significant errors, the Transport Secretary has said.
The emergency inquiry has also underlined how the process to replace Virgin Trains was flawed and poorly planned.
Patrick McLoughlin highlighted the finding in a statement to the House of Commons.
The findings underline what was thought when the decision to award the new franchise to FirstGroup was scrapped earlier this month.
A fuller inquiry into the fiasco will try and identify how the problems were allowed to arise and how the franchise system should evolve as the process moves forward.
Mr McLoughlin told MPs the problems had arisen because of the actions of staff at the Department for Transport. Three members of staff have been suspended pending the outcome of the full inquiry.
In a letter to Mr McLoughlin, Sam Laidlaw, the head of the investigation, said that in seeking to run a complex and novel franchising competition process, an accumulation of significant errors had resulted in a flawed process.
He said the errors appeared to have been caused by factors including inadequate planning and preparation, a complex organisational structure, and a weak governance and quality assurance framework.
Mr McLoughlin said the Government recognised there had been a lack of transparency, inconsistencies in the treatment of franchise bidders, together with technical flaws in the franchising process.
Virgin Trains is continuing to operate the service for the time being while the Government decides how to progress the franchising system, which has cast doubt about how future franchises will be awarded.
Longer term, the outcome of the inquiry could impact on future rail schemes such as the £17bn HS2 link between London and Birmingham.
Stagecoach Group, which operates Virgin Trains under a joint venture agreement, said today it welcomed the opportunity to participate in the reviews.
The group, which also has a bus division, said in a trading update that its overall profitability remained good, and that despite the WCML situation there had been no significant change to its pre-tax profit predictions.
It said that in the 24 weeks to October 14, its UK Rail arm had seen revenue growth of 7.9%, with the Virgin Rail Group up 2.7%.
“Overall current trading remains good and the prospects for the group remain positive,” it said.
The group plans to announce its interim results for the six months ended October 31, 2012 on December 5.
