This written answer from Cruella on the 1st February...
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which companies his Department has contracted to carry out consultancy work on the Intercity Express Programme; what the total monetary value is of each such contract; and how much each such company has been paid to date.
Theresa Villiers (Minister of State (Rail and Aviation), Transport; Chipping Barnet, Conservative)
holding answer
| £ | |
| Barkers HR Advertising | 16,632 |
| Capita Resourcing | 431,218 |
| Clifford Chance | 1,606 |
| Congress Centre | 11,970 |
| Ernst and Young | 161,042 |
| First Great Western | 149,873 |
| First Class Partnerships | 5,913 |
| Freshfields | 5,644,844 |
| Jim Standen Associates | 10,620 |
| Mott MacDonald | 11,827,506 |
| MWB Business Exchange | 1,903 |
| Nichols | 2,938,071 |
| GNER, NXEC and East Coast Trains | 1,233,895 |
| PricewaterhouseCoopers | 2,791,582 |
| Reed Employment | 51,054 |
| Steer Davies Gleave | 1,235,628 |
| Willis Ltd | 13,615 |
| Total | 26,526,970 |
For the period from
| £ | |
| Capita Resourcing | 7,842 |
| First Great Western | 22,261 |
| Freshfields | 27,242 |
| Mott MacDonald | 79,468 |
| Nichols | 178,368 |
| East Coast Trains | 46,574 |
| Steer Davies Gleave | 82,343 |
| Total | 444,098 |
The Department for Transport currently has live contracts with the following companies. The monetary amounts set out represent the maximum total authorised spend, not the amount remaining for each. As such, much of the work under these contract has already been carried out and invoiced for, and is included within the amounts in the previous tables.
| £ | |
| Freshfields | 3,600,000 |
| Mott MacDonald | 15,000 |
| Nichols | 15,000 |
| PricewaterhouseCoopers | 25,000 |
| Steer Davies Gleave | 45,125 |
| Total | 3,700,125 |
Unbelievable!
How can you spend over £27m of taxpayers money and have nothing to show for it, apart from reams of paper?
If privatisation is such a good idea perhaps time to flog off Great Minster House and pretty damn quick, before it wastes any more of our hard earned cash?
UPDATE: This from the French Taunter...
Eye readers may be wondering why Cruella has bundled the electrification of the Great Western Main Line into a question about the Incredibly Expensive Procurement.
A glance at Rail Amateur reveals the following story posted yesterday:
Bi-mode Hitachi Super Express trains would operate the inter-city service, using pantographs to Bristol and under-floor diesel engines thereafter. Hitachi would build a final assembly plant at Newton Aycliffe in County Durham for the trains. The company says it would create up to 800 jobs.
Evidently the Department now has a cunning plan!
UPDATE: This from several people in the industry who wish to remain anonymous...
"These figures include the time spent by companies in response to Foster Review queries"
Folks get paid to respond to Foster!
Where do we send the invoice?
UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...
Could Cruella explain why GNER / NXEC / EC costs are 10 times those of Great Western, when the costs are supposed to relate to the IEP and GWML Electrification Programme?
UPDATE: This from D1039...
May I draw the bowler hat's attention to the following from PA, under the perhaps misleading heading "Hopes rise for rail electrification"
Welsh Colonial Governess Cheryl Gillan told MPs: "Whatever we are left with when an announcement is made, you can rest assured we have left no stone unturned in making the case for electrification into Wales. I remain optimistic about a good outcome."
If, as Rail Professional reports, wires will stop in CUBA*, how can it be a good outcome for Wales?
Is Wales the new Albania?
*CUBA = the County That Used To Be Avon eg Bristol, or in the case of Parkway, South Gloucestershire
UPDATE: This from Howard Wade...
Surely, the prospect of driving a stake through the heart of the Zombie Train and puncturing the Reality Distorting Bubble enclosing Great Minster House was reward in itself.
That Foster and his two old railway ramrods were seen of with ease by the bi-mode cabal suggests that we might as well have stayed in the office doing something which could be invoiced...
UPDATE: This from The Velopodist...
Eye readers responding to the Rail professional IEP story are all commenting on the basis that the story is accurate.
I'm getting the phone equivalent of blank stares when I ask the people in Great Minster House about this story.
The Midland Main Line electrification looks a particulalry flimsy theory. On top of that, I'm far from sure that the bi-mode cabal have seen off the electric-with-diesel locomotives idea.
These points aside, it looks a super story.