Eye suggests how to improve value from the railway

Exciting news from the Department for Transport!

DafT is undertaking a study into: Improving value for money from the railway.

According to the department's website blurb the study will:

...examine the overall cost structure of all elements of the railway sector and to identify options for improving value for money to passengers and the taxpayer while continuing to expand capacity as necessary and drive up passenger satisfaction.

Eye suggests that the Department starts this study by examining its own role in recent doomed or about-to-be-doomed rolling stock procurement exercises, where millions have been wasted with nothing to show for it (eg IEP, the cancelled DMU project, the pointless and very expensive Coco inquiry into Roscos, etc... ).

There's a good £50m of waste identified before we even begin to look at the debacle of franchising.

Sadly turkeys don't vote for Christmas so expect the usual Whitehall whitewash.

UPDATE: This from Ithuriel...

By far the best way to improve value for money on the railways would be to bring back Tom Winsor as the Waste-Finder General.