I can't link properly to this from the RMT (for a parliamentary committee) so it's cut and paste. Long but worthwhile.
NB to help justify closing ticket offices: "RMT is concerned by the recent decision of the DfT controlled Northern Trains to withdraw Advance Purchase on Departure (APOD) fares from sale at its ticket offices, whilst retaining these tickets for sale online and at Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs).
12 December 2022
Northern Rail Chaos – Cuts and cancellations on Northern franchises
Avanti West Coast – a fundamentally rotten company
At the Transport Select Committee on 12th October, Richard Scott, Director of Corporate Affairs, West Coast Partnership, told MPs “We had no problem at all before the end of July, when there was the sudden dropoff, with 90% of drivers suddenly saying they were not available for rest day working”.1
This is untrue. RMT asked members working at Avanti whether they agreed or disagreed with Richard Scott’s statement that the company had no problems before July 2022. 95% of respondents said they disagreed.2
The truth is that Avanti did not have a sudden and unprecedented problem in July. They had an escalating problem that began when FirstGroup took over the West Coast franchise.
• When they took over, full or part cancellations stood at 1.5%. Cancellations have steadily risen over the course of the franchise until today they stand at nearly 10%.
• Since they took over the franchise in 2019, Avanti have lost 12% of their staffing complement. There are 446 fewer FTE than in 2019. This is through a refusal to replace leaving staff and fill vacancies.
• RMT surveyed its members working for Avanti West Coast over 5 days at the beginning of December 2022. More than 1,000 members of staff at Avanti responded to the survey. More than 90% agreed that working life has got harder in the past three years, that there are not enough staff working for Avanti West Coast and that Avanti West Coast have mismanaged their workforce. More than 80% strongly agreed with all three statements.
1
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/10943/pdf/
2
https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-survey-of-avanti-staff/
• 95% of Avanti ticket office staff reported that they were aware of ticket offices closing or failing to open during their advertised hours as a consequence of understaffing. 70% reported that this had happened more than 10 times in the last 6 months.
• Staff believe that Avanti are particularly bad and that the real problems date from when FirstGroup and Trenitalia took over. From this point on, there was chronic understaffing, an attack on established Rest Day Working pay rates and agreements, incompetent rostering and a hostile attitude toward staff from management.
This not only throws doubt on Avanti’s public claims, it also makes a mockery of the government’s public explanation that ‘Avanti experienced an unprecedented, immediate and near total cessation of drivers volunteering to work passenger trains on their rest days.’ 3
Yet this idea that there was a sudden and unprecedented action by staff forms the basis of Avanti’s application to have their mass of cancellations designated as a force majeure event, equivalent to industrial action.4
This would enable them to discount all these cancellations from their performance figures, making it more likely that they will get a full management fee which they can then turn into dividends.
• Avanti bosses told Parliament in October that their performance was improving. ORR data show that Avanti’s cancellations dropped over the course of August 2022, after the DfT allowed them to introduce a new timetable that cut around 1,700 trains from the timetable over the course of 2 periods.
• However, from this point, the number and percentage of cancellations rose again over the next two periods. Avanti ran 30% fewer trains in October than they had in July and were still cancelling almost 10% of them fully or in part.
Avanti staff have no confidence in the company’s claims that it will deliver improvements in December. 22% were not very confident and 70% had no confidence at all. As one staff member put it:
“I just don’t see how it is possible and how they will achieve it. Goodwill has gone. If they can do it by December why have they not done it already? It’s embarrassing and customers deserve better”
Initial indications are that Avanti are still cancelling a large number of trains.
• On 4th December, Avanti had 20 Full cancellations and 14 Part cancellations, almost all through staff availability.
• On 10th December, the last day of their old timetable, Avanti had 18 Full cancellations and 12 part cancellations, again mostly through staff availability.
3
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commo...D-BF83-4C0B-BCA7-8C51F8CE8071/AvantiWestCoast
4 See our more detailed briefing on this:
https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/public-...ay-profit-from-misleading-claims-24.11.22.pdf
• On 11th December, Avanti launched their much vaunted new timetable. There were 16 Full cancellations and 12 Part Cancellations, 17 of which were down to staffing issues.
• On 12th December, Avanti cancelled 38 services in Full and 10 more in Part, all of which were staff related cancellations. That’s almost 1 in 5 of their new daily timetable.
Avanti West Coast have completely lost the trust and confidence of their staff. It will be impossible for Avanti’s managers to rebuild this trust.
Avanti applying to have cancellations designated as ‘Force majeure’, enabling them to profit from failure
On 23rd September, the government revealed in an answer to Navendu Mishra MP that Avanti were seeking ‘contractual relief under Force Majeure Provisions’.5
Avanti’s attempt to mislead Parliament about the problems on their lines, and its attempts to frame their problems as due to an ‘unprecedented’ and ‘sudden’ drop off in drivers willing to work their rest days are not just part of a PR operation but they are vital to its application to be able to classify any cancellations classified as results of a ‘force majeure’ event.
Avanti’s ERMA stipulates that evaluation of the Operational Performance element (25%) of their Performance Based Fee will include consideration of the number of cancellations.
Force majeure is defined in Avanti’s contract as including any ‘act of God, war damage, enemy action, terrorism or suspected terrorism, riot, civil commotion or rebellion’ and ‘any strike or other Industrial Action by any or all of the employees of the Franchisee’.6
As we’ve seen, Avanti Executives almost immediately described their problems in July as the result of ‘unofficial industrial action’ by drivers, a line condemned as a lie by ASLEF but repeated by the then Secretary of State Grant Shapps. Although both Avanti and the government have retreated from this line, they persist in describing it in very similar terms as the result of ‘an unprecedented, immediate and near total cessation of drivers volunteering to work’, a description that indicates that both parties appear close to classifying it as ‘force majeure’.
In answers to questions tabled in Parliament, the Department has made it clear that it is regularly meeting with Avanti West Coast to discuss the issues of traincrew availability:7
“Department officials continue to review and scrutinise Avanti West Coast's (AWC) performance and monitor the overall delivery of the contract for passengers. Officials meet with AWC to interrogate the issues and challenges, particularly concerning traincrew availability and timetable recovery.”
5
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-09-20/52058
6
https://assets.publishing.service.g...oast-partnership-franchise-agreement-vol2.pdf
7 Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament
If the government has decided already that this is a question of unofficial industrial action constituting ‘force majeure’, then Avanti might well get to discount cancellations that are a consequence of their disastrous mismanagement of the contract and this would enable them to claim their full performance fee for the franchise, continuing in the process its record of profiting from failure.
This is in essence repeating what Govia Thameslink Railways did in the Southern dispute and as the National Audit Office noted in 2018, the form of the contract that these operators are now on – essentially management contracts - means that the companies have less incentive to resolve any issues with staff because they continue to be paid regardless of the level of service. If they succeed in getting their problems ascribed to force majeure, there will be little or no pressure on Avanti to improve their service.8
The signs are that the government may be complicit in this deception as it persistently repeats the line that Avanti’s problems are due to unprecedented, sudden actions by its staff. If Avanti are helped to get away with this it will be little more than a grubby, corrupt scam on the taxpayer.
Bring in the Operator of Last Resort
This is a fundamentally rotten company that should be stripped of its franchise. The West Coast mainline should join the East Coast mainline in public ownership, under the operator of last Resort. This is a vital precondition to rebuilding staff goodwill and trust and confidence in management.
Indeed, the latest accounts for the Government owned Operator of Last Resort (which runs the Northern, LNER and Southeastern franchises) published on 12th December, contradict claims made elsewhere by the Government that the OLR is stretched and instead confirm that the OLR is in a position to step-in and take over more franchises if required:
“As well as being ready to take on more Train Operators if required DOHL is now strengthening its resources to help implement elements of the Williams-Shapps review. Its ownership and operating structure give it the flexibility to move quickly without extensive contractual and commercial discussions.”
In fact, the OLR already has dormant companies incorporated for seven franchises including West Coast and Transpennine Express.9
8 In 2018, the NAO wrote that “this franchise contract, which was different from other franchises in that fare revenue was received by the Department rather than the operator, meant that Govia Thameslink may have less incentive to avoid strikes than other operators.”
https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/u...outhern-and-Great-Northern-rail-franchise.pdf
9
https://assets.publishing.service.g..._Limited_Annual_Accounts_FY2021_Published.pdf
Service cuts and cancellations on other Northern franchises
• As Table 1 shows [not included], Transpennine Express are also planning 23% fewer trains than a year ago and cancelling almost 10% of them. This is a record of failure close to what Avanti have achieved on the West Coast Mainline.
• It’s instructive to compare this with Northern, run by the Operator of Last Resort, who are planning 20% fewer than this time last year and cancelling 6% of them. This suggests that FirstGroup may have a particularly acute problem connected to their attitude to staff on Avanti and Transpennine Express.
When is a cancellation not a cancellation? When it’s a ‘p-code cancellation’…
The official figures for cancellations, which are published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) do not include what is known as ‘p-code’ cancellations, which are pre-emptive cancellations before 10pm the night before the scheduled service.
Bizarrely, the Government has confirmed, in response to Parliamentary Questions that it ‘does not hold all information relating to ‘p-coded’ services’10. Therefore, given that these cancellations do not appear in the published figures essentially provides a loophole for operators in terms of underreporting cancellation levels.
It has been reported that Transpennine Express has the highest rate of cancellations of all of the train operating companies of up to 19–30% each week when ‘p-code’ cancellations are factored in11 and that on Monday 12th December, the first day of its new timetable, around 32% of trains were cancelled12.
The Committee therefore may wish to seek further information from the rail operators regarding the level of p-code cancellations and how widespread this practice is.
Northern Trains – Withdrawal of Advance Purchase on Departure fares from ticket offices
RMT is concerned by the recent decision of the DfT controlled Northern Trains to withdraw Advance Purchase on Departure (APOD) fares from sale at its ticket offices, whilst retaining these tickets for sale online and at Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs).
Advance fares are designed to offer the best value fares for passengers, and RMT believes the decision to withdraw APOD fares from ticket offices is part of the Government and rail companies’ moves to close all ticket offices across the network. We also believe that passengers who cannot use online ticketing or machines are likely to be disadvantaged by this policy and that older and disabled passengers and those on low incomes could be particularly affected. Given that Transport Focus’ recent passenger research found the issue that matters most to rail passengers is that the price of train tickets offers value for money13 it seems that the removal of these fares from ticket offices runs counter to what passengers want. Early Day Motion 683 has been tabled on this matter by Cat Smith MP and Committee members may wish to raise this issue with Northern Trains during the session.
10
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-12-06/104344
11
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-stark-north-south-divide-railway-reliability
12
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ancelled-new-timetable?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
13
https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/publication/britains-railway-what-matters-to-passengers/