Localism, decentralisation, devolution – these words have become the motherhood and apple pie of the Coalition government. They are, after all, popular concepts. The idea of being closer to the centres of decision making is universally appealing and no politicians have ever dared to boast that they would like to centralise power more, even though that is what successive governments have done.
However, transforming these fashionable concepts into reality for transport, especially the railways, is no easy matter. In March, the government issued a consultation document Rail Decentralisation, which received little attention because it was published at the same time as the Command Paper on the future of the railways.
The consultation paper is very much part of the wider agenda on localism and therefore the government seems genuinely committed to the idea. However, no blueprint is set out and there is a rather tentative feel to the Consultation Paper as it presents a wide range of options that might be applied to different situations. Decentralisation, says the paper, is being considered because ‘local decision makes may be well placed to recognise trends in usage and demand’ and to assess that may affect local needs. These local bodies are, too, ‘able to compare the benefits of expenditure on different types of transport provision’. This suggests that in an ideal world, the Department would allocate a sum of money to local councils – or groups of them – to spend as they please.
However, there are two fundamental issues which raise doubts about whether this is feasible. First, would the Department – or rather the Treasury – ever genuinely let go of so much power without setting strict rules and guidelines? That would be almost unprecedented. Secondly, there is the question of precisely how much money, compared with present arrangements, would the Department allocate?
The paper considers a wide range of models and each one raises its own complexities. There has already been, of course, some decentralisation of decision-making on the railways and the results have generally been positive. In Scotland, responsibility for the Scotrail franchise was transferred from London to Edinburgh and not only has there been a couple of major reopenings but the current Scottish government is very keen on seeing further considerable investment in the network.
London, too, has been able to benefit from a partial decentralisation. Soon after it was created in 2000, Transport for London established a rail division which initially had no lines under its control. But through concerted lobbying, TfL gained control over bits of the old Silverlink franchise together with a revamped and extended East London Line to create London Overground. This is let out as a concession, rather than a franchise, since the revenue risk is retained by TfL, making it a different model from the standard Department for Transport arrangement.
The Passenger Transport Executives which support services in six English conurbations have been a remarkable success story. As Chris Austin, a former BR press officer, put it recently in Railwatch, PTEs have created bigger and busier networks around our great cities than British Rail would have been able to sustain on its own’. In other words, localism boosts rail investment and rail use.
So far, though, only PTE has been given control of the franchise process. Since 2003, the franchise for Merseyrail Electrics has been the responsibility of the local PTE, rather than the Department for Transport, and this is one of the models which is under consideration during the consultation process. However, replicating the scheme to other passenger transport executives is not a simple matter as their networks are part of the large Northern franchise which operates both local and regional trains, whereas on Merseyrail is virtually a self-contained network.
Indeed, what to do about Northern Rail is the biggest issue on the decentralisation agenda offering both the best opportunity for a radical change but also raising the widest range of potential obstacles. The Consultation Paper offers little detail on how this new arrangement might work. As Jonathan Bray, the director of the Passenger Transport Executive Group, puts it, ‘it is great that the process of decentralisation seems to be very open ended, but that also poses problems. We are not quite sure what we are dealing with and we need to know the detail before we can decide whether it is what we want’. Indeed, the local politicians would be reluctant to take on a vast swathe of new responsibilities without knowing the precise financial details of the scheme. There have already been discussions and the obvious first step would be to devolve power over issuing franchises from the Department to some sort of local body.
The Northern franchise covers a ragbag of routes principally in Yorkshire and Lancashire and includes both regional and urban commuter routes. It encompasses five of the six English Passenger Transport Executives and is the most heavily subsidised franchise, costing taxpayers more than £250m annually. Currently PTEs are co-signatories to the franchises (except in the West Midlands) and receive funding from the Department to pay for services which has given them some role in specifying timetables and routes.
Under decentralisation, however, the PTEs would have total control of the franchise, paid for partly from a grant from the Department, but presumably topped up from their own resources. But that begs the question of exactly who would be the local agency to run the franchise? Mr Bray suggests it might be some kind of new larger supra-PTE created specially to run the franchise: ‘It might be like a Strategic Rail Authority for the North. The PTEs could get together and form a united body which would manage the franchise.’ As with everything in this story there are complications. Services which are run entirely within one PTE would remain their responsibility, funded by them. The larger confederation, therefore, would only specify the regional services and longer commuter routes. There would undoubtedly be difficulties in getting its various members, who are used to batting for their own local issues, to sing from the same hymn sheet. Indeed, one reason why Labour government ministers were reluctant to return bus services to local control by councillors was precisely because they were sceptical of the local politicians’ ability to make decisions informed by strategic rather than purely local considerations.
One suggestion that is not on the table but which could be considered is the notion that rather than letting the franchise out, which is very heavily subsidised, the lines could be run directly by the new consortium of passenger transport executives and local councils. Timing, though, is a problem. The current franchise, extended last year, runs only until September 2013 and therefore the bidding process will have to start soon. Northern is already a complicated franchise, covering a vast swathe of territory with 2,600 trains per day, more than any other operator, and there is speculation that it will be merged with the Transpennine Express franchise, which will have the effect of reducing subsidy per passenger but will add further complexity to the mix.
Investment is key. Many services in the North are still run using ghastly Pacer trains which were a cheap option chosen by British Rail to enable it to keep lines open, but their ‘bus on tracks’ type design is well past its sell by date. A new fleet to replace the current 100 Pacers still in use would require at least £300m, and probably more to allow for e
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